Jobs For The Boys
by KCCM
Summary: A tough case drives our favorite BAU to a dead-end. That is until Agent Emily Prentiss is abducted. Will the rest of the team manage to get her back, and if they will, is she just as safe as everyone think she is? Includes the whole team, with focus on Emily. Give it a try! (Rated T, same as the show) E.Prentiss/D.Morgan ;) NOW COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Okay so this is my first CM story, so please be kind! I'm sorry if this chapter seems to not be going anywhere, but I assure you, it's worth reading (hopefully)! Since I am no genius, I will try and pretend that I am.  
**

**This is going to be a story featuring everyone, but with the focus on Emily. It takes place anywhere during season 2,3,4 or 5. You pick. **

**Slight Prentiss/Morgan pairing later on.**

**So please review, follow, like, whatever y'all do, I'd appreciate it SO much!  
**

**DISCLAIMER: Sadly, I do not own Criminal Minds, and I think I should accept that already**

* * *

CHAPTER ONE

_Achievement is not always success while reputed failure often is. It is honest endeavor, persistent effort to do the best possible under any and all circumstances_- Orison Swett Maden

* * *

Emily Prentiss was not one to question her decisions. But now, her hands tied behind her back, feet tied to the chair she was sitting on, her whole body feeling tired, weak and aching, she couldn't help herself wonder, if it had been the best of ideas to walk around alone, with a sadistic killer on the spree.

She let out a moan as she shifted in her seat. Every damned part of her body hurt. She tried to think, to profile this guy who had taken her. But, her head seemed oddly slow, and as much as she wanted it, she couldn't get her thoughts running. She remembered getting out of her car to check something, and then, someone must have walked up to her from behind -as she didn't see anyone, and, by the feeling of her body, they tased her. Well, this wasn't doing her anything good, so, she shook her head and opened her eyes.

Obviously, she was in a basement. The only window she could see from her highly restricted seat in the middle of the room, was high up on the wall, close to the sealing and very small. A small amount of light sought it's way in to the room, which wasn't light up by anything else. There wasn't much light, only enough to let Emily see.

The walls of the room she was in were completely bare and gray, the floor was covered by a thin layer of dust, which thickened closer to the walls. But where she sat there was no dust to be seen, telling her this room was used often. Well, not often, but often to do things like tie somebody up and let them sit in the middle of the room. There were almost no furniture in the room (except for the damned chair she was stuck on), but a chair similar to hers in front of her, next to a camera, that only hours ago had shoot some kind of footage of her, and had been sent to the BAU. But Emily was unaware of that, in fact, she had no recollection of even being placed in the room. So, all she could do now, was to do her best in profiling the guy and wishing, hoping that her teammates, her family from the BAU, would find her.

* * *

_**One week ago.**_

"We have a case" Jennifer Jareau's voice echoed through the bullpen filled with working agents. Emily looked tiredly up from the files that were scattered all across her desk. Even after two steaming cups of coffee, she wasn't much of a morning person. She saw a glimpse of JJ and Penelope Garcia entering the briefing-room. Sighing, Emily quickly gathered her belongings and stood slowly up.

"Whoa, all that excitement! Control yourself girl!" Derek Morgan teased her as he rose to walk with her.

"I'm sorry, I'm just really tired." Emily smiled half-heartedly. "That last case was really tough"

"It was on all of us" Morgan said, a little less cheerily. "But we caught him, and he's behind bars now"

"I know." Emily said.

JJ waited until everyone was seated until she began with the briefing (slightly late since Garcia had seen it appropriate to publicly put her opinion on the street about how hot Morgan looked, and after that she fussed a bit over the fact that Emily looked dreadful, which Emily hastily brushed away saying she was a bit tired).

"Seven bodies, all women, 25 to 55-" JJ clicked on the remote, showing seven bodies on the big screen, all with severe bruising, and blood all over them. "-the first one, Tracey Gibbons, was found by a couple who were out hiking with their dog. The dog started barking and digging, and well, there we have our first victim"

"Must've been a nice hike" Rossi exclaimed, the corners of his mouth turned upwards.

"And the rest were found how?" Reid asked.

"The rest were laying within a ten miles radius of the first one" JJ answered.

"So our Unsub most definitely knows the woods, he's probably grown up around there" Emily said, staring at the open case-file in front of her.

"And another woman has been abducted from Utah two days ago" JJ sighed.

"And how were they killed?" Morgan questioned.

"All were killed differently, the first two victims were shot in the head, the next two were hit in the head, the two after that were strangled and the last one was drowned"

"Two, two, two and one. Were going to have another victim" Reid counted.

"Garcia, run a back-ground check on all the victims and see if there's anything that sticks out to you and crosscheck them and see if they have anything in comeon" Hotch instructed the spot of colors that was Garcia.

"Aye aye captain!" Garcia honored Hotch, which only managed to get him looking grumpier than usual.

"I guess we're going to Wyoming!" Morgan said enthusiastically, although the circumstances of their visit wasn't the most delightful.

"Wheels up in thirty" Hotch said and closed his file in front of him.

* * *

"Hey, you sure you're okay?" Morgan's voice waked Emily up from her reveries as he sat down in front of her in the plane.

"Yeah, I'm fine" She said lamely and tried to smile, which wasn't too convincing for her own taste, yet along for another profiler.

"Something's bugging you Prentiss" It wasn't a question. "Spit it out"

"Morgan, I told you, I'm just tired. Stop nagging!" Emily snapped.

Morgan looked momentarily taken aback, chock visible for a second in his chocolate-brown eyes.

"Fine. Have it your way" He threw his hands up in the air in defeat and returned to the other agents in the front.

Emily sighed. She hadn't meant to snap like that; it wasn't like her. She was good, and always had been good, at compartmentalizing. It was one of the few things her mother had taught her. Never show your true emotions, it only makes you weak and vulnerable. Usually the cases didn't affect Emily too much, which in the beginning of her career in the BAU had surprised her colleagues, she was supposed to have been a greeny in the field, having only worked at a desk before. But, Emily had, after all, been an Interpol- and CIA-agent, even though she usually never thought about those parts of her life, and she had never, ever planned on telling her team about it. Well, yes, maybe eventually, but not yet, anyways.

But something about this case gave her a bad feeling. And usually, her 'bad feelings' about something, led to bad things happening.

Now trying to put that feeling in her cut away, she stood up and joined the rest of the team in the front to do their usual splitting of the tasks when they got to Wyoming.

"...Prentiss and Rossi, you will study victim number 3 and 4's houses. See what you can find there. JJ and Morgan, you'll take number 1 and 2 while me and Reid will take number 5, 6 and 7" Hotch instructed his team.

They had split the victims up based on where they lived. Since the Unsub had abducted all the women from outside Wyoming, in fact from all of the six states surrounding Wyoming (one from Montana, one from South Dakota, one from Nebraska, two from Colorado, one from Utah and one from Idaho), it was easier to split up and look at the crime-scene pictures (they usually visited the crime-scenes, but it would take too much time to do that now, so they'd have to settle for pictures. It wasn't as efficient as visiting them, but it had to be good enough).

* * *

The plane hit ground in Wyoming and six tired agents made their way to the police office in Cheyenne. A ragged looking police officer shook hands with Hotch and nodded to the other agents.

"You can use this room, it's the best we've got" He showed them a room that was a little isolated from the rest of the office.

"Thank you, it'll be great" Hotch nodded appreciatively and led the rest of the team towards the room. Murmurs, whispers and suspicious, and some rather filthy looks followed them as they walked past the employees at Cheyenne police department. While it was normal local cops did not appreciate the FBI working on _their _cases, Emily felt the hair on her neck rise; these looks were worse than the ones they usually got.

The team went their own ways with their partner ones they got their pictures. Emily and Rossi sat down in a small empty room they found in the police station.

"Looks like this guy has a lot of anger" Rossi stated the obvious. The pictures showed what ones was a cozy, normal American house, that was now totally destroyed; the furniture was thrown all over the place and picture frames were broken.

"So I think we can safely assume he was at the victim's houses" Emily nodded. "But how did he pick exactly _these _women? I mean, they have nice houses, they have a good job, but they do not have a husband or kids. Is he punishing them for that?"

"No..." Rossi said slowly. "If we follow your thought on the jobs, we can see that they all worked for the government. There we have something in common"

They continued studying the pictures for an hour or so, but slowly running out of ideas. That's when they thought they ought to check on the others. Like victim number 3 and 4, the other victim's houses were completely destroyed, and the others had also come to the conclusion that the killer had a lot of anger towards the women due to their jobs. All of them were hard-working, with a good job, they were all on top of the company or whatever was their job -and they all worked for the government. After another couple of hours bickering about the M.O, the Unsub, the victims and their jobs, everyone were getting frustrated and they weren't getting anywhere, so Hotch wisely encouraged everyone to take a brake.

At exactly that moment, the Unsub decided Kelly Marshaw from Utah was no fun anymore.

* * *

** Please hit the review button!  
**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N Well, chapter 2! Thank you to those who have reviewed, followed and favorited! It really does mean a lot, gives me inspiration to write more, knowing there are readers!**

**DISCLAIMER: Obviously, I do not own Criminal Minds, otherwise I'd be showing you this on TV and I wouldn't have treated Paget like CBS did... anyways...**

* * *

CHAPTER 2

_Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work - Vince Lombardi_

* * *

Emily sank tiredly down on the bed of the hotel-room. At first it hadn't looked so appealing, but after twenty hours of being awake, studying case-files and drinking nothing but bad cop-coffee, it looked so much more appealing. She did only get off her coat and shoes, before sleep engulfed her.

But after only four bad hours of sleep, her phone went off. Exhausted, she reached out and squinted at her phone, trying to make out the caller-ID. It was definitely someone starting with a J. Sighing, knowing she didn't have many contacts starting with a J, and only one called her on daily basis, Emily answered.

"Mmm Jayje?"

"They've found another body" JJ's tired voice answered.

"I'll be right there"

"Won't you wake Morgan for me? He isn't answering his phone"

"Will do" Emily got up, picked her clothes with still eyes swollen with sleep. It felt as if she hadn't had any sleep at all. They had been up until one o'clock, trying to find anything new about the case. When Reid fell asleep and spilled his coffee all over his case-files, they finally decided to call it a day. Late working-hours were definitely one of the cons of her job.

Once Emily was dressed and looked somehow representable, she walked to the room next to hers and started knocking.

"Morgan? You there?" Emily banged her fist against the closed door to Morgan's hotel-room. "Morgan? Morgan!"

After a few minutes she heard a loud noise and Morgan swearing with words he most certainly would not use in front of his mother, nor Hotch, for that matter.

"Derek?" Emily's voice sounded high-pitched. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. You just woke me up like you had something to tell me that couldn't wait and I fell off the bed."

"Owh, I'm sorry!" Emily couldn't contain her laughter. It was hilarious imagining the tough-badass-guy -Morgan falling off of the bed because of her screaming on the other side of the door.

"Shut up Prentiss"

Fifteen minutes later all of the others had already left for the station. Reid offered to stay and wait with Emily for Morgan, but she declined his offer and he left with the others. Later rather than sooner a very grumpy-looking Morgan joined her.

* * *

Half an hour later two very tired-looking agents walked through the doors to the police station. The others were already sitting around their table, all looking as tired as Emily felt.

"Finally! Sleepyheads" Rossi muttered. "One whole hour. I'm sure two federal agents should be able to do better than that."

"I'm sorry it took us so long, Morgan had to apply his make-up on" Emily said, rolling her eyes.

Morgan mumbled something, shook his head and fell down next to Reid by the table.

"Well? Another body?" Emily sat down as well next to Hotch and Rossi.

"Yes, the Missing woman, Kelly Marshaw, who was abducted three days ago, was found in Lake Alice, by some unlucky campers. Cause of death-"

"-Drowning" Reid finished for her. "Did you know, Lake Alice is the largest natural lake found in the western portion of the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming?It's-"

"Reid, save it for later" Hotch interrupted him, for which they were all very thankful. None of them were particularly interested in the history of some lake in Wyoming, at least not at six o'clock in the morning.

"Well, the drowning-part was no surprise, but he is clearly escalating, he only kept Kelly for three days, the other victims were kept at least one week" Emily thought out loud.

"I think we can safely say he has a type..." Rossi began carefully.

"Brunettes" JJ nodded, finishing the sentence for him.

Emily's stomach churned painfully. Even if she tried, she couldn't help noticing that, in fact, all of the victims resembled herself a lot. Not only did they look as she did, but they did work for the government (as she did), they were ambitious (as she was), and they were workaholics (as she was). Emily swallowed, blinked rapidly and looked up. She caught Hotch's eyes carefully watching her, concern written in his face, behind his typical 'Hotch-expression'.

"Funny thing, Kelly Marshaw's family lives in Wyoming. Here in Cheyenne, actually!" Reid exclaimed, looking excitedly up from his files.

"Prentiss and Rossi, you go talk to them. Get as much out from it as possible. They are the only family we can talk to for now. The others live too far away." Hotch instructed them. "The rest will stay here and study Kelly's files. Garcia?"

"Yes Boss-man?"

"See what you can find on Kelly Marshaw."

"Just a second."

"And JJ," Hotch continued, "Give a press-release about the case. Make it as much about the victims as you can; the Unsub is clearly wanting to put them down. He wants to make this about himself, not about them. We'll not follow his rules. Make _them_ look really good, like they haven't done anything wrong in their whole lives."

Emily and Rossi stood up and started gathering what they would be needing for interviewing the family and then left. JJ scrambled up a few notes and followed them hastily. She caught up with them just as they were about to leave the building.

"Rossi! Emily! Wait!" they turned around, questioning looks on their faces.

"I just thought-" JJ gathered herself. "That you'd want to wait going out there"

Emily and Rossi looked outside. Instantly, voices began screaming and cameras flashing.

"Wow! What's up with all those reporters?" Emily asked, surprised. There hadn't been any this morning when she and Morgan had arrived.

"Someone leaked there has been another victim" JJ sighed. "I thought maybe I should go out there, get their attention and begin telling them something. Then you two can sneak out without them swarming you."

"Thank you JJ. That would be great. Although I don't know if they can resist the good ol' Rossi-charm" Rossi smirked, his dry humor submerging.

JJ smiled and rolled her eyes at Emily and walked out. Emily caught the reporter's screaming again before the doors shut after JJ. JJ positioned herself in front of the lot and began speaking.

* * *

Kelly Marshaw had been a rather boring one. She had screamed and screamed and screamed, and screamed a little more. When she hadn't been screaming vulgarities at him, she had been screaming for help. That's not what strong women would do. They would understand why he did what he did. No, she was not a fighter. Yes, she was a bad one. And now, he had to get another one. Only where to start?

They had invaded everything and everywhere. He had to be sure he picked a good one this time. But, as his father had taught him; if you wanted something, you had to work for it. Not like these sluts did, getting something by charming or thanks to their looks. No, he would work for it like any hard-working man, so, being in no hurry, he grabbed a beer from his refrigerator, and slumped down on the old, worn couch. He flicked through the TV-channels, until he found something that caught his eye. A blond woman, maybe thirty-something, was staring right back at him, a grave expression etched on her beautiful face, her crystal-blue eyes looking serious.

"Then why is he killing these women?" Someone shouted at her.

"We believe it is because of the women's careers, they were all successful business-women, with very good jobs-"

Well, hadn't they got something right, the police? They weren't at total loss, after all. He just hoped they would realize what a good job he was doing. Ridding these women off of their jobs, the jobs that so clearly belonged to men. Two agents left the building behind the blonde woman, apparently named Jennifer Jareau. An old man walked, head down, swiftly to a dark SUV. A tall, slender brunette following him.

He was instantly mesmerized by her beauty. Her pale skin was in deep contrast against the black hair, that had hints of brown in it. She walked as quickly as the other agent and entered the car with him. An angering feeling washed over him when he saw she sat down on the driver's seat. He grasped the beer-can so hard that the beer poured over his hand and the can itself, crumpled. She was one of those, apparently. A selfish bitch who stole all the big jobs from men. Instantly, he knew, he had to do something about it. And this time, he would do a fantastic job.

* * *

**A bit shorter, I know, but next one's gonna be loaded with stuff!**

**Uh, this Unsub just creeps me out!**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N S****o here we are again:) As you know I do not own Criminal Minds (yet)... I hope you like this chapter and if you have any suggestions, comments, anything, just rewiev;) Or follow... or anything!**

**AAAND a BIG thank-you to you who have reviewed! Makes my day! Everydaaay**

**KCCM**

* * *

CHAPTER 3**  
**

_The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them - Ernest Hemmingway_

* * *

"You sure you're okay? I mean, I know you don't like people asking you that all the time, but something is clearly wrong." Rossi looked at her with his known 'Rossi-face', staring intently at Emily. They had been driving for about forty minutes and were getting closer to their destination.

"Well, you know, as well as I can be with eight dead women looking like me, I think I'm doing pretty fine" Emily smirked at Rossi in the passenger's seat, without looking away from the road, trying to make a joke. Apparently Rossi saw through her lame attempt, as he continued:

"You sure there's nothing else?"

Emily broke eye contact with the road, just for a second. Why should she confide in this man? Well, maybe because he hasn't told your secret about Italy? A little voice in Emily's head reasoned. Somehow, Rossi felt very much like the father she never had, he was so calm, everything about him screamed trustful.

"I... I've had a tough time lately" Emily paused, and Rossi didn't interrupt her, of which she was grateful. "I've been fighting with my mother. Usually we talk about one or two times per six months, but now she did all of a sudden call me before we got this case and I-" Emily seemed to drift off in some trans, staring at the road, rapt up in her memories, thoughts, feelings, whatever.

"Emily?" Rossi asked after a few minute's silence.

"Sorry" Emily snapped out of whatever thoughts she was in. "She said some things that really got to me-"

"What things?" Rossi pushed.

"Nothing really important, the same stuff as always. About her not really liking my job, thinking I should go out on dates more often, and then she started saying things like 'You are never going to get yourself a husband if you continue with that job of yours, you should have followed my footsteps into politics, I am disappointed' and such." She shrugged. "It usually don't bother me like this though"

"But that isn't it, is it?"

"She brought up my father"

A long silence followed that sentence. Rossi had never heard Emily talked about her dad, so he knew it was a sensitive subject.

"I haven't seen him since I was six."

Rossi couldn't come up with anything to say. What do you say in these situations? 'Oh I am sorry you don't know your father at all and he left you for whatever reason. I'm sure it was a good reason, though. Do you want coffee?'.

"He wants to see me." Emily said quietly, almost forgetting Rossi sat next to her. "Well, we're here." And that was it. The conversation was finished.

They pulled over by a nice-looking home. It was pretty normal-sized, it's garden was obviously being very well taken care of.

"Hello, are you Mrs. Marshaw?" Rossi asked the small woman who opened the door. She nodded quickly. "I'm Special Agent Rossi and this is Special Agent Prentiss. May we come in?"

* * *

He had followed their black SUV all the way to the Marshaw's house. It wasn't hard figuring out where they were heading. Kelly Marshaw was indeed the only victim who's family lived in Wyoming. He was now parked a few houses from where they had parked, and watched them as they got out of their car. Again, he got that feeling, anger boiling up in him as he saw _her _jumping out of the driver's seat. That was not where she should sit. She followed the elderly Agent to a house and they knocked on the door. A little woman opened and they followed her in.

* * *

Mrs Marshaw showed them the living room. Emily noticed that she did not have many pictures of her daughter, Kelly in the room. Mrs Marshaw sat them down on the couch and went to get cookies and tea. Mr Marshaw entered the room, just as Emily started wondering where he was.

Mr Marshaw was tall and wide, but not exactly overweight.

"Hello Agent Prentiss. Agent Rossi." He nodded at both of them before he sat stiffly down on one of the chairs.

"I reckon you are here because of Kelly" He said sadly. "She was a good kid, she was..."

"Here are you cookies and tea" Mrs Marshaw was back again.

"Thank you" Rossi smiled at her, letting is charm ooze out of him. Emily stopped herself just in time to not roll her eyes. "So do you know if Kelly had any enemies? Anyone who would want to hurt her?" He asked the question they always had to ask.

"Well no, I don't think so.." Mr Marshaw began. "I mean, of course she may have stomped on a few feet, you know, if you're working as a CEO in a big company, you cannot avoid these kinds of things."

"But nobody would want to do this to her, that's crazy, no, she did not upset people that much, she was a good child" Mrs Marshaw agreed.

After about half an hour, Emily and Rossi were done. They hadn't got much out of the parents, except that Kelly had been a little tense the week before her abduction, and that she had mentioned she thought someone was stalking her.

"Don't you think it's weird Mrs and Mr Marshaw always said 'she was a good kid' or called her 'our daughter'?" Rossi broke the silence as he drove them bag to the station.

"Well, they were obviously not close" Emily said. Another point we have in common, she thought.

* * *

"Got anything from the Marshaws?" JJ asked Emily and Rossi when they arrived. The others had been, as usual, searching for something new. And, as they had expected, they got nothing new. This case was beginning to look like it would never end.

"They aren't close at all with their daughter, I bet they only share phone calls every now and then, even though the parents are never going to admit that, and Kelly had told them she thought somebody was stalking her the week before she was abducted." Emily briefed them.

"And we think that the Unsub might have met Kelly at her job. He might have been a customer, a co-worker, a cleaner, anything." Rossi continued.

"Garcia?" Hotch asked the computer on the table.

"You have called the all-knowing Oracle of all living things. What can I help you with?" A brisk Garcia popped up on the screen.

"We need you to see, if you can find anyone who has something to do with Kelly Marshaw's work, who has a register of maybe hurting animals, petty-steals etc." Hotch said.

"Right away my dear mortals. PG out." The image of Garcia disappeared, leaving the room instantly colder and grayer.

A few minutes later Garcia reappeared.

"So, I found thirty matches- yes, the number is shockingly high and it's so wrong and I can't believe who would hurt small innocent-"

"Pen," Morgan interrupted her gabbling, and just in time; Hotch's eyes were starting to shoot daggers.

"Yes, yes, sorry" Garcia waved them off.

"Does any of them have any connections to our other victims?" Reid asked her.

They heard the sounds of Garcia's keyboard, before:  
"Six"

"_That _many?" Emily asked, astonished.

"Yeah" Garcia said, sadly. "Who should I narrow it down?"

"Narrow it down to only men, ages 30-50, white, living alone" Reid said quickly.

"Five" Garcia told them. "I've sent them to your tablets, they should be there...now"

And, as Garcia said that, their tablets all light up with a little _pop!_

"We can handle five." Hotch said. "Prentiss and Reid, you take... Sean O'Connor and Daniel McCray, Morgan and JJ David Gordon, me and Rossi will take William Tate and Leroy Blue."

* * *

"How is Prentiss?" Hotch asked Rossi once they were done with William Tate and Leroy Blue. They had both been complete assholes, narcissist and selfish bastards, but they were cowards, and had most certainly had not killed no human.

"She'll make it" Rossi wasn't keen on telling Hotch more than he had to, after all, Emily had confided in him, not Hotch.

"Did you talk with her?"

"Yes. But look Hotch, I don't really want to talk for Emily. If she wants to tell you, she will." Rossi said, straight forwards.

Hotch nodded. He had hoped Emily would have told him what she told Rossi, he was the team-leader after all. Well, maybe he wasn't as close with her as she was with Rossi, not to mention her bond with the younger agents. But he had hoped she would have trusted him more, he would gladly have welcomed her, helped and listened to her.

* * *

He saw them walk out of the house. Her dark-brown hair glowing in the sun. He saw with a feeling of delight as she walked around the car and sat down on the passenger's seat. He followed them from a safe distance, far enough not to raise any suspicion, but close enough not to loose them.

He followed them to the police station. Oh, they are police-men, this should be interesting, he thought to himself. He rolled down his window and watched the two agents walk towards the station. There were lots of reporters standing outside, probably wanting to know more about his good deeds for society, well, they would get to know, not just yet...

They started shouting at her and the older man. Someone said something about something called the BAU. Oh, they shouted and called them 'Agents'. Quickly, he got on his phone and googled 'BAU'. Apparently did it stand for Behavior Analysis Unit. There, there was a picture of _her. _Special Agent Emily Prentiss.

So, she was not a police-officer, she was an Agent. Special Agent. This was turning out better than he had hoped.

* * *

**And uhm well, now that I'm reading this it does seem short, but, it was not short to write, that's for sure!**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N WOW! Here's the longer one I promised you guys! I hope you like it! I liked writing it, specially the scene between Emily, Reid and Sean O'Connory. Oh and a few people have asked me to pair Emily and Morgan up, so I thought, what the heck, let's do it! I promise you, the chase is going to get clearer from now on, I just had to paint a picture first... But thank you for the lovely people who've reviewed, keep em coming!;)**

**Disclaimer: I still don't own Criminal Minds...**

* * *

CHAPTER 4

_A smile is the best way to deal with difficult situations. Even if it's a fake one. Used properly, you can fool anyone with them. - Unknown._

* * *

"It's weird though" JJ said as she and Morgan sat at a small, cozy little cafe a nice police-man (one of the only ones that actually had welcomed the BAU's help) had recommended. They were sitting in one of the booths, with very nice, comfortable sofas.

"Wha'?" Morgan said, mouth full with bacon and eggs.

"How Prentiss has acted lately"

"Whatcha mean? I haven't noticed abyfing" Morgan said indistinctly, scooping up more food.

"That's what I mean, her lack of emotions" JJ stared thoughtfully into her coffee. This coffee was so much better than the coffee at the police-station. "If I were her I'd be pretty shaken up."

She and Morgan had recently been at one of the suspects, David Gordon's house. He had tried to hit on JJ so she had decided to let Morgan handle it and wait in the SUV. Morgan had come back, angry and frustrated, but had stated that Gordon was not their killer.

"What, why should she act like that?"

"Haven't you noticed it? All of the victims _are _Emily!" JJ said, frustrated with Morgan. _How _could he _not _have seen it?

"You're right... But there have been other cases like this." Morgan shrugged.

"Yes, we've had other killers who have got it for brunettes, but not how their _so _like her! God Morgan, how can't you see it?"

Morgan still seemed clueless, that JJ explained the whole situation with how everything about victim's jobs, their personal lives, their relations (or none-relations) with their parents, everything and anything seemed to scream Emily Prentiss to her. When she was done, she concluded happily that Morgan looked more enlightened.

"You are right... but we know she's good at compartmentalizing"

"How good anyone be _this _good at it?" JJ asked, a puzzled look on her face.

"You're right... it is weird, and now that I think about it, I did noticed she looked a bit worse for wear _before _you briefed us on this case" Morgan said, eyebrows crinkled together, as if he was trying to remember something that happened a very long time ago.

"You think we should talk with her?" JJ asked him, trying to see any signs of what he thought about her idea.

"I really don't know JJ, I really don't know" Morgan shook his head. He wasn't good at talking with women, no, he _was _good at talking with women, but then he had a whole different goal in mind. And this was _Prentiss_, and Prentiss wasn't anybody. Lately, he had been noticing small things about her that he hadn't noticed before. The way she laughed with him when they made fun of Reid, the way her eyes would spark when she talked about their shared interest Kurt Vonnegut with him, the way she walked...

* * *

Emily and Reid were in Sean O'Connor's house. They had finished talking to Daniel McCray, who had seemed fishy, but, Reid and Emily both agreed, wasn't the person committing these murders. Sean O'Connor, on the other hand, wasn't giving off very much. He had a small apartment in a crappy building. Sean was currently sitting, or rather lying on his couch, staring blankly back at them. Reid shifted next to Emily; he didn't like talking to suspects that much, and this one was currently staring rather contemptuously back at him, his light blue eyes contrasting against his coal-black hair, making Reid uncomfortable.

"Where were you two days ago late evening?" Emily asked Sean, looking down at her notes. She did not notice the change in his face when he looked from him at her, it was filled with something mixed with awe and hatred. When Emily looked up at him again, she saw nothing but a blank face, one washed off of all emotions.

"Here, watching TV" Sean said flatly.

His tone of voice sent shivers down Emily's spine and she had to keep herself from shivering from discomfort.

"Are you here because of the murders? Because if you are, I think you're wasting you're time" He continued lamely, staring at Emily without blinking.

"How do you know about them?" Reid asked him. As he did so, Sean resettled his focus on Reid. He looked at him a while, a almost quizzical, innocent look on his face, then said:

"Are you dumb?"

It was a sentence neither Reid nor Emily had expected.

"Um, sorry?" Reid said, dumbstruck.

"Are. You. Stupid?" Sean repeated, calmly, pronouncing every syllable very clearly.

"No, he is not" Emily said almost angrily, as if she was offended by Sean's question. Sean slowly tared his eyes off of Reid (thankfully for him), watched Emily silently.

"He has an IQ of 187" Emily continued, still on the offensive, but you could hear a hint of proudness in her voice.

"Has he now..?" Sean asked slowly. "Well then he should know that the murders have been on on every news-channel there exists."

Reid, feeling slightly awkward because of Emily's defensive behavior and a tad more awkward thanks to Sean, did not know how to respond. Of course people would know about the murders, there were truckloads of reporters outside the police-station and JJ had even had a press-release about the case. He did feel a little stupid now.

"He knows that!" Snapped Emily.

Reid looked over at her, not believing his ears, but his eyes only verified what he had heard. Emily was trying to stare the Unsub down. Reid put a hand over her shoulder, trying to calm her down. The movement did not get unnoticed by Sean, as his eyes narrowed as he watched their interaction. But, apparently it helped a little since Emily asked more calmly:

"Is there someone who can verify that you were here?"

"Other than my dog-" Sean gestured towards the Pitbull lying peacefully next to him, his light-brown head resting on it's paws, watching them curiously, "-no."

"Well then... I think we are done here" Emily said and turned fiercely on her heels and walked briskly out of the dor. The pitbull raised his head and kocked it slightly to the side. Sean put a hand on it's back, and it yawned and went back to it's original position.

As Reid was about to follow her, he noticed Sean's glance linger on Emily's retrieving form a second too long, before he locked eyes with Reid, giving him a little smile.

"Um...Well, thank-you for your cooperation." Reid said politely and turned to leave, he too. But before he did so, Sean said:

"Anytime my friend." And gave Reid an almost unnoticeable wink. Reid felt like Sean was talking about something else, only he did not know what, but, too soon, he would know.

"I did most certainly not like him!" Emily said angrily as they were driving back.

"He gave off a very discomforting vibe, I agree" Reid nodded, keeping eyes on the road. "You think his the Unsub?"

"I don't know" Emily said, shaking her head. "There was something off about him though, it'll be interesting to hear what the others have found out."

* * *

What the others had found out was nothing. None of their suspects were the killer, that was one positive thing, but then again they were running out of leads. Three hours later Hotch told everyone to go home. The only thing they had to work with was Emily's and Reid's not one hundred percent belief that their suspect hadn't been the Unsub. Hotch and Rossi had told them they'd stay behind and dig deeper into Sean O'Connory's life.

Emily sat tiredly down on the front seat, net to Morgan who was driving. JJ and Reid sat behind, talking animatedly about something, Emily wasn't paying too much attention. She relaxed her body as the car began moving. She had always found it nice to sleep in cars. Specially when it was dark outside. She guessed it had to do with the fact that when she was a kid she often fell asleep in cars when her mother had her sent somewhere far away. This was more nice than riding in badly-conditioned cars on bumpy roads somewhere in the Middle East or Russia. Nowadays it was just a habit that had stuck with her.

Morgan took the chance to sneak a glance to his right. Emily's head was rolling slowly from left to right. Her mouth was slightly opened and she was frowning. She was obviously dreaming.

Emily let out a little moan, making something deep in Morgan clench. He tried to ignore the feeling and looked back onto the road. He looked into the driving mirror and locked eyes with JJ. She gave him a knowing glance and Morgan quickly broke eye contact. He wasn't in the mood for that right now. Poor little Reid was obvious to the whole thing and was babbling on about statistics of well, something, Morgan wasn't sure what.

Thirty-something minutes later they arrived at their hotel. JJ dragged Reid away from the car, saying something about that she needed help with something. Morgan looked helplessly at the sleeping woman next to her. He had never seen her asleep before, well, maybe he had, but he had never been alone with her while she was asleep. She looked so peaceful, her face soft, her hair falling smoothly down, framing her face perfectly. Suddenly she let out a little snort and jumped, but continued sleeping. Morgan couldn't help laughing, and he realized, he could sit there all night watching over her. But how to wake her? Even if he would never admit it, he was a little bit intimidated by her and he had loads of respect towards her as well. He knew that she could overpower him anytime she wanted it. He'd make a hell of a good fight, but she could take him out if she wanted. If there was something Derek Morgan knew, was do not mess with a woman, especially not if that woman has a gun, and _particularly _not if that woman has a gun and is Emily Prentiss.

After a few more beats he mentally shook himself and grabbed Emily's shoulder and shook her gently.

"Prentiss... Prentiss!" No response. She only moaned something and waved lamely with her hand at him and turned away. "Prentiss! Emily!" He tapped her on the cheek. Her eyes snapped open and she jumped forwards, pushing him away and pulling out her Glock, pointing it at Morgan.

"Whoa there!" Morgan said scared, putting his hands up in the air where she could see them. "It's me, Morgan!"

"Oh, sorry. It's the job, you know?" She shrugged. "But, goo-goodmorning!" She yawned.

"No, it's not morning, Prentiss, we have to go to the hotel. Hotch sent us to bed."

"Oh" She unbuckled herself. "Let's go then, what are you staring at?" She laughed at him.

They walked laughing about the recent situation all the way up to their rooms. Morgan had the one next to hers, so they only parted at the doors.

"Well, goodnight then Derek." Emily smiled at him.

"Uh, goodnight" Morgan said. He had to stop himself from grabbing her and pulling her over for a kiss or maybe follow her into her room. Morgan mentally kicked himself for thinking like this. They were working together, there was no way they could do this. What _this_? There is no _this. _She obviously doesn't feel like you do towards her, he thought. Emily smiled at him and closed her door.

Suddenly he heard a door open and a blonde head popped out. It was JJ. Of course, he thought.

"So? How'd it go?" She asked.

"What?"

"Oh you know what I am talking about!" She said, frustrated that her friends did not see what was standing right in front of them. "You and Emily!"

"Oh honey trust me, there is nothing going on between us two" Morgan laughed, unimpressed with his own lie. But, technically, it wasn't a lie, Emily had made no signs of being interested in him.

"but-" JJ started, but Morgan cut her off.

"Goodnight JJ." He quickly opened his door and sneaked into his room. He got undressed and headed for the shower.

Emily sank down on her bed, as she had did the night before. She thought about what she could have done instead of 'Goodnight Derek'. She wondered what those lips of his would taste. Those muscles under his shirt... No, she could not let her thoughts wander off in that direction. She went to take a quick hot shower, and then headed straight to bed. Mercifully for her, before her thoughts could wander off in unwanted directions again, she fell asleep quickly and deeply.

* * *

He watched them walk up to their hotel. They laughed and talked friendly with each others. He followed them from a safe distance. He hid behind a corner and saw them bidding each other goodnight. Then she finally entered her room. Another door opened and a blonde woman looked out of her room.

"How'd it go?" She asked. The dark man seemed to be as much lost as he felt. After a while it became clear that the dark man had feelings towards this SSA Emily Prentiss. The man brushed the younger blonde woman off and closed his door and so did the woman after him.

He waited another while until he was sure everyone was asleep. Now was his queue. It was now or never. He sneaked silently up to her door, pulled out a pin and started messing with the lock. After a while he heard a faint _pop! _He pushed the door slowly open. It creaked, but not loud enough to wake the sleeping woman on the bed. He pulled out a long knife and headed towards her. She looked so peaceful, her dark hair all over the place, but in a good way. She stirred a bit in her sleep when he woke her, before she was completely awake. Her eyes filled with terror as she saw the knife and he was filled with the wonderful feeling that was becoming so well-known to him. This was going to be a good one, he told himself yet again.

* * *

**DADADADUMMMM!**** Review please *puppy eyes*! KCCM  
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	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Here we are, chapter five (already!). This one's a bit more Reid, and the few following chapters are probably going to be more team-ish:) Please REVIEW! Oh and I don't own CM...**

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CHAPTER 5

_You shouldn't thank your friends for being there for you, it's their job- Unknown._

Reid woke up at eight o'clock. At first he was shocked. When was the last time he had been able to sleep this well during this case? He yawned and rolled over on his side to check his phone. Maybe he had received some important messages. But he had only one from JJ that said he'd have to meet her and the others at nine thirty at the station.

Reid got up, washed his teeth and put some clothes on. He was glad when he saw he had packet his favorite green vest with him. he combined it with some beige trousers and a white blouse. Just as he was putting his shoes on her heard a knock on the door.

"Reid? Reid are you up!?" It was JJ.

"Yeah what's up?" Reid opened the door. JJ looked frantic. She had obviously been running her hands in her hair so that it was now hanging in all directions, her eyes darted up and down the hallway and she was breathing heavily.

"You need to come help me! I can't get Emily to answer her door! I've been trying for like ten minutes!"

Reid wondered why JJ would be so hectic about Emily not answering the door. Maybe she was already in the shower and hadn't heard her, maybe she was sleeping really well or maybe she had already gone out.

"Have you tried her cell?"

"Oh.. no" JJ blushed. Why had she been so dumb and not tried that? She pulled out her phone and pressed on a speed-dial key. She heard a few beeps until she reached Emily's voice-mail.

"She's not answering" JJ heard the small undertone of panic in her own voice.

Hmm, that was odd, Reid thought and crinkled his eyebrows and stared down like he usually did when he was thinking hard. Prentiss always carried her phone with her.

"What's happening here?"

And that was Rossi. Reid rolled his eyes. He was the only thing missing in this situation.

"Prentiss isn't answering her phone or the door" JJ explained to him. "Do you think something's happened to her?" She now turned to Reid.

"The most likely thing that has happen would be her falling from somewhere, like her bed. Odds of dying in one year due to the manner of falling from a bed or other furniture are one in 423,548-"

"Yeah so that has probably not happened" Rossi interrupted Reid's rambling. That was one of Reid's bad habits, starting talking about statistics of something when the time was not appropriate.

"We'll just go and ask Hotch's spare key" Rossi continued calmly and wandered off towards Hotch's room. Hotch always had a spare key to all of the team's rooms in case something happened.

A few moments later Rossi came strolling back, Hotch on his heels, looking very sincere.

"What's all this about?" He asked Reid.

"Uh, I was just- we were-" He stammered.

"I was worried about Prentiss since I couldn't get her to answer her phone or her door so I went to get Reid." JJ helped Reid out and he shot her an grateful look.

Hotch did not ask any further questions, he only nodded and opened Emily's door. The room was completely empty. Reid noted that the bed had been slept in, the covers looked like someone had thrashed them around and they were now hanging rather dreadfully down from one side of the bed, like the person sleeping there had been dragged out of bed and hadn't bothered putting them back in place.

There was nothing stolen from the room, except Prentiss' badge, gun, and Emily herself, of course. Reid felt considerably more relaxed when he saw how neat and tidy Emily really was, all her belongings were in her go-bag (in which he did not dare to look in, and left the task to JJ to handle), he didn't very much like the idea of having to walk into Emily's room and find her clothes scattered all over the floor, underwear and bras included, so he was pleasantly surprised.

"Where do you reckon she is?" Rossi asked the rest of the lot after they had quietly taken in everything there was to see in the room.

Hotch crinkled his forehead and looked at the others.

"One thing's for sure, if she had left willingly she would have told us."

"So you think- you think someone took her?" JJ swallowed. This was not the reason she had expected why Emily hadn't answered her.

"We can't rule that out in this point."

"What's happening here?" Morgan walked into Emily's room, topless and with checkered flannel trousers. He looked like he was still partly sleeping. "What're y'all doin' in Prentiss' room? Where is Prentiss?" He looked around, as if trying to spot her between the others.

"She's not here and we don't know where she is" Reid said.

"What?" Morgan's voice raised. "How do you know she's been abducted?"

"I'm positive she would inform me if she left somewhere, that's something I've told all of you to do, to avoid some misunderstandings."

"Okay... So what has happened when I was sleeping?"

"JJ didn't get Prentiss to answer the door so she went to get Reid and Rossi saw them and came to get me." Hotch explained.

"And no one got me!?"

"Morgan we do not have time for this if Emily really has been taken away" Rossi said warningly to the younger agent.

Morgan nodded. "So what do we know?"

"Well Emily was obviously taken sometimes during the night, probably after we went to bed, but before you guys came" Reid said, referring to Hotch and Rossi. "The Unsub must have taken her Glock, or maybe he had his own weapon and threatened her with it. Prentiss wouldn't have gone quietly if he hadn't had anything to overpower her."

"And he probably woke her up too, when he was close up, so that she wouldn't have much time to think and possibly win him"Rossi agreed.

Reid's stomach clenched unpleasantly when he looked over at the bed again. He could imagine Emily lying there, flash still, eyes open wide, trying to think of a way to escape this unknown person towering over her. He looked over at Morgan and saw him staring at the bed as well and looking rather pale.

"You okay?" Reid walked over to him.

"Yeah I guess so. I just- I was the last one to see her, maybe if I-"

"Morgan, stop. You couldn't have prevented this" Reid cut him off. He knew Morgan would blame himself for not stopping this.

"Yeah I'm sorry, we should focus on getting her back. Don't you worry about me, Pretty Boy, I'll be fine!" Morgan tapped Reid's shoulder and walked away to the others.

* * *

Emily's head ached. She was lying on something hard, a floor, probably. But why was she lying on a floor? She had most likely fell down from her bed and blacked out for a while. She tried to stand up, but suddenly realized her hands were tied up, and so were her feet too. Why were they tied?

Emily slowly opened her eyes and stared up at a gray ceiling. But it didn't look like a ceiling. She rolled her head to the left and noticed that she was lying on the floor of a van. Damn it, that was never bidding good. How did she even end up here in the first place?

Oh yeah, she remembered someone at her bed last night, before everything went dark. speaking of darkness, it wasn't night anymore. There was light (very bright indeed it seemed like, but she couldn't be sure if she had been drugged), streaming down from the windows, which were wisely covered up (almost) with something. Well, it wouldn't be good for the Unsub if someone walked by and saw her lying there. Although, maybe no one walked by. Maybe they weren't in a city, maybe they were in the woods. Emily sure as hell hoped not, though. That would complicate her escape, if she would manage to.

Emily tried freeing herself from her restraints. But it didn't help much, as the ropes only dug deeper into her skin, making her wince. Biting them didn't do much either, so Emily gave up and started rolling to the side. When she reached one side of the car, she sat up. But everything began spinning, and apparently so did her stomach, as she quickly lowered to one side and emptied her stomach of last night's dinner. Ugh, that stinks! She thought and crinkled her nose. Emily reached for the door handle, but the door didn't open. Damn, locked, figured, she rolled her eyes. She'd be stuck for god knows how long with her own vomit. This week was only getting better.

* * *

JJ called the crime-scene team over to look at Emily's room. They located some unidentified fluid on Emily's pillow. They brought it to the lab to get identified. Other than that, there were no fingerprints or anything else that would lead them on. Reid was pacing back and forth outside the hotel, trying to sort his thoughts out. Suddenly, his phone began buzzing. It was the forensic team. Finally, it had already been three hours since they had noticed Emily's abduction, three hours of Emily having to be stuck with the Unsub, doing whatever he was doing with her.

"Dr. Reid."

"Hello, this is Butch Rogers, we found out what was on Agent Prentiss' pillow."

"Yeah?"

"It was Chloroform."

_Of course. _Reid sighed. "Thank you very much Mr. Rogers."

"Good luck finding your agent." Rogers wished and they hung up.

Reid dialed another number.

"Hello my sweet Wonder Boy" Garcia greeted him.

No one had obviously broken the news to her, otherwise she wouldn't be that happy. Reid knew she would only get upset with them if they didn't tell her what had happened, so he had no choice but to tell her, a task he'd much rather would have avoided.

"Garcia, Emily has disappeared from her hotel-room." He told her the only way he knew to, straight forwards, plain, the truth.

Silence. Reid didn't like silences, they were uncomfortable and you could only guess what the other person would say. He didn't like to guess, he'd much rather stick to facts.

"Are you sure?" Garcia said clearly.

"Jeez, where would she be otherwise, Garcia?" Reid instantly regretted snapping at her. "Sorry Pen, I didn't mean to be rude, I'm just worried." He kicked a stone away. he heard Garcia sigh on the other end. It was a rather calm response being Garcia, Reid thought, but he guessed she would probably just call Morgan when he hung up and weep and worry herself sick.

"I know honey. We'll find her." She said after a heavy silence.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Here's a long LOONG one! Hope ya like it! Thank you so much to all of you who have reviewed, favorited and followed! It really means a lot! Keep it up!;)Yes I sound like a review-whore but it reaaally keeps me motivated! :) SO, read on... KCCM  
**

**Disclaimer: I still don't own CM (if I did I wouldn't have fired AJ nor Paget...)**

* * *

_There is only what you want and what happens. There is only grabbing on and holding tight in the darkness- Lauren Oliver, Hana_

* * *

Emily opened her eyes when she heard a door open. She had been lying on her back in the van, head aching too much to do anything else. A tall, muscular man, wearing regular jeans, a black jacket and a dark hood covering his face stood there, looking down at Emily, whilst putting on some thick brown gloves. He had been in there once before, putting a cloth over Emily's mouth and nose. She had slipped into unconsciousness within seconds and laid limp in the van for another hour or two. She knew what he had made her inhale then and at the hotel. That sweet, pungent smell couldn't be anything else than chloroform. Emily only hoped he wouldn't make her take it again, she didn't know how much more she could take.

But, to her relief, and a bit to her fear, he bent down and lifted her up, or rather pulled her up from the ropes around her wrists to a sitting position. They dug unpleasantly into her skin, but she did not complain. Emily knew, that if this was their Unsub, she must act strong, even if she didn't feel extremely in control, her body refusing to hold her upright, so the Unsub was practically holding her upright by holding her wrists.

The man's peculiar blue eyes eyed her for a second, before he hauled her up on his shoulders ("Stop! Put me down!"), then lugging her to a smaller car. He went to the passenger's seat, put her down and closed the door. Emily instantly tried opening the door, but, as expected, it did not open, child lock was undoubtedly on. Her captor sat down on the driver's seat and started the car.

"What are you doing? Let me go!" Emily said loudly. Before she knew it, the man had hit her across the face so hard she saw black for a moment, and when her vision came back, everything was blurry. She blinked a few times, trying to rid her eyes of tears. By the time she saw sharply again, the car was already in motion and she tasted the awful taste of blood in her mouth. Thank god the pain wasn't that overwhelming, so she ruled out the possibility that her jaw was broken. But her nose was another story, the way it was bleeding the blood would soon fill a bathtub. But, she had been through worse before, she could take this, Emily told herself.

"Stop the c-" A second blow came at her, sharp, searing pain made it's way over the left side of her face. Emily's head rolled over to her right, too heavy to control. She felt more blood soak her already stained shirt.

"That'll teach you not to talk to me without permission" The man said, not looking at her. But his voice... there was something familiar with it, but Emily couldn't place it.

Okay, she wasn't supposed to talk to him. Point taken, she thought as she held her face towards the ceiling, trying to stop the bleeding. Now she had to work up a profile for him, to make out her best ways of escaping, or at least staying alive long enough for the team to find her.

The car was racing through various different landscapes, thickly grown forests, plains, lakes... if she'd been in another situation Emily would have appreciated them more, but now she wished the car not to continue taring through them landscapes, it would only make it harder for the team to trace them if they went into the wilderness. But, Garcia could probably find her anywhere, she thought and let out a little chuckle. Hell, Garcia could probably even find her if she tried to hide from her somewhere in Africa.

"What are you laughing about?" The Unsub peeked over at her.

Emily hesitated a second, was she supposed to talk to him now? Apparently yes, as he suddenly elbowed her harshly in the face, making the blood flow once again. She could have prevented his elbow hitting her face if she wasn't drugged, making her reactions much slower.

"TALK!" He shouted. Damn, he was bipolar! First he hit because I talk then he hits because I don't! Emily thought, confused.

"I- uhm-" The thick blood made it hard to talk. "I waf finkin' bout our technical analysis Garfia."

"Oh you were...? And what was so funny?"

"She is a preffy intereftin' perfon."

"I have noticed." What did that mean? Had he stalked them all? Now that she thought about it, he probably had. If he was murdering successful women, he had surely had eyes on Garcia, her _and _JJ. Part of Emily was thankful he had taken her and not the other two, they were her best friends, she didn't know if she could have taken either one of them being abducted, poor naïve Garcia, she only saw the beautiful things in life, even with the job she did. Her world would have completely failed her if she had to experience the things she saw on her computer-screens all day long. And JJ, she was so young, too young. Emily shuddered at the thought of her friend's beautiful, big, blue eyes filled with tears, that little spark of hers gone. These thoughts on her team members made her wonder what they were doing right now... were they all standing in a circle, tossing ideas back and forth? Or were they maybe standing alone, trying to act as if Emily was there amongst them? She sure hoped someone took care of Reid, he was so young he too... and Garcia... she was all alone back in Quantico... Emily hoped Morgan called her and talked to her. No one could calm her down as he could. She smiled as she hoped Morgan hadn't punched his way through too many walls.

* * *

"Fuck!" Morgan held his right knuckle in his left hand. Rossi walked over to him.

"What is it?" But he hadn't needed to ask that question, he instantly saw the hole in the wall. The older agent rolled his eyes at the younger one, but reminded himself, he too had been like Morgan back in his days.

"You'll need to get that checked."

"Not before Emily's back." Morgan groaned.

"In that case you might want to save your punches to the Unsub." Rossi said jokingly. Morgan looked up, one eyebrow at the ceiling. Rossi winked and walked over to the others.

"So he used chloroform to get her away silently. If we focus on the chloroform. How did he get it?" Hotch asked.

"Chloroform is difficult, at best, to purchase as an individual. If you represent a school, university, or business/laboratory that legitimately uses this substance, you can shop at chemical supply sites on the internet." Reid informed them. His eyes were a little bit red and swollen, he had been crying when none of the others saw. He was close with Emily. Ever since she had taken the beating for protecting him from a twisted cult leader, Reid had began to form a closer bond with her. The others knew he wouldn't get over it easily if they didn't get her back.

"Garcia?" JJ asked the computer on the table. It instantly lit up with a not-so happy-looking Penelope.

"Yeah?"

"Could you check all purchases of chloroform made this year?" Morgan asked. He didn't even call her any of his nicknames for her, and neither did she when she answered.

"I can't find any that look suspicious, but, a local school made a report to the police that a pretty big amount of the devil's drinks, chloroform," She added when a few of the team raised an eyebrow. "-was stolen a year ago."

"Did they get the guy?" Morgan asked.

"Yeah it was one of the students... who stated he had been given some cash from a man, who said he needed the chloroform, but they never caught the guy and the student was expelled. There wasn't much to do and the student could've been lying, but fact is the chloroform wasn't in his possession, and, actually, it was never found."

"So we suppose that man, our Unsub and the guy who took Emily is the same guy." Reid said.

"Oh wait a second my lovelies! I got something!" Garcia's triumphant scream startled them. She was replaced by a security camera footage on the screen. It was a bad quality footage of an alley with a dark van parked in it. A few seconds later a door next to some dumpsters opened. A man, carrying someone smaller in his arms, exited. He walked over to the van, pulled the door open and dumped the other person rather harshly in it. He jumped out, closed the door, entered the driver's seat and drove away.

"This was from the night Emily disappeared." Garcia's voice rang out from the computer. "If you look closely-" The video was being zoomed-in, at the point the man came out to the alley, to the motionless-figure in his arms. The video was so blurry, that you couldn't make out a thing. But Garcia bettered the quality that much that a woman, pale and dark-haired could be identified. "-you see that looks a _lot _like Em."

"Can you make out the van's plate?" Hotch asked Garcia.

"Already done. I followed it, it drove all the way through town and then the trace got cold. But there is an deserted parking-lot pretty close to where I last saw it, so he could have been driving there."

"Well done Garcia. Rossi and Morgan, I want you two to go check the parking-lot out." Hotch instructed them.

* * *

Morgan parked the SUV next to an identical van to that one in the video. Rossi and he got out and checked the van. It was unlocked, and inside it they found some vomit that smelled disgusting, and a few cloths, soaked with chloroform, Morgan guessed. But there was something on the driver's seat that really caught their eyes. An envelope. Rossi grabbed it and opened it. He now held something that looked like a picture to Morgan, and, Morgan's stomach contracted painfully, a lock of dark-brown hair.

"He left us a message." Rossi stated the obvious.

"Let me see that" Morgan grabbed the picture. It was indeed a picture, a picture of Prentiss lying in the van. She was tied, lying on her back, eyes closed. But she didn't look dead, Morgan sighed with relief.

"He's obviously letting us know that he has her and there's nothing we can do." Morgan said. "But where are they now?"

They looked around, but there was nothing that looked out of place. Then suddenly, Rossi waved Morgan over.

"What is it, man?"

"Look over here, tire marks." Rossi pointed at the ground. "He must have switched cars, knowing we'd track down the van!"

"Probably downgraded to a normal car."

"That doesn't exactly help us." Rossi sighed. "He could be anywhere."

* * *

"He isn't home!" Reid exclaimed after a while's banging on the front door. He and Hotch had gone to talk to Sean O'Connor in spite of anything better to do. But now they had been knocking on his door for over ten minutes, and it was indeed clear he wasn't home. Morgan and Rossi had just called them telling what they had found.

"I've got an idea." Hotch said and pulled out his phone. "Garcia?"

"What can I do for ya boss-man?"

"What kind of a car does Sean O'Connor own?" Hotch asked.

"Mr. Sean O'Connor owns a van, an identical one as the one in the video and a gray Ford Mondeo. Why?"

"Rossi and Morgan found the van and they think the Unsub might have changed cars, and I'm starting to believe Sean O'Connor isn't exactly innocent."

"I think he's fled" Reid joined Hotch now. "There's nothing personal left in the room as far as I can see from the window and his car is no-where to be seen. I just called his boss and he hasn't been at work at all today."

"Well, now we know what to look after." Hotch said. "See if you can find the Ford, Garcia."

"Kay boss!"

* * *

After like six hours the man had finally pulled over at a small motel. It was about time, Emily wasn't sure how much longer she could sit in that car. Her body was beginning to ache and she was about to fall asleep all the time, but she didn't want to since she didn't want to sleep with her abductor so close to her, making her vulnerable.

"Wait here." He said and jumped out.

As if she had any choice, Emily thought after haven crawled around in the car, testing all the doors, which were, surprise, surprise, locked. Emily sat back down in her seat and waited. After a while, the man came out of the motel again.

"Let's go!" He dragged Emily out of the car but Emily had been lying and sitting for the past twelve hours and drugged two times, her legs gave up completely and she fell down on the ground.

"_Get up!_" The Unsub hissed and pulled her up. This time, she managed to stand, though. "I will untie you, you will hide all that blood and follow me without a word, okay?"

Emily didn't answer. He grabbed her by the throat and lifted her so that she only stood on her toes.

"I said _okay_?"

The fingers dug painfully into Emily's throat and she was beginning to choke. "O-okay!"

The man released her immediately. He handed her a handkerchief which she took and wiped the dried blood off her face. After that he began untying her restraints. When they were off, Emily caressed her soar wrists. They were a bit red, but not too bleeding, yet. Suddenly the Unsub pointed something hard at her stomach and moved closer to her. Emily realized he was holding a gun against her.

"Let's go. And one wrong move..." He pushed the gun painfully hard into her stomach, making her growl.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: I'll keep it short since I know no one ever reads these and I don't wanna wake my cat up who's sleeping on my arm... Thank you so much for reviewing and following and liking and stuff, you're great! Please keep it up! And now here's my treat to you:**

* * *

CHAPTER 7

_Nobody can hurt me without my permission- Mahatma Ghandi_

The Unsub marched Emily through the very small lobby, Emily looking down at the floor, trying not to make eye-contact with anyone, as she had been told. When they entered a small room, Emily quickly took in her surroundings.

There was only one room and a bathroom, she could tell by a quick glance. She noticed there was one bed and one couch, and only one small window. To her, the room resembled more a cozy prison-cell than a hotel-room. The Unsub had apparently not thought of staying here a long time. Which was a good move on his behalf, it would make them harder to track. That, of course, was not a very good thing for Emily.

The Unsub shoved her further into the room and closed the door. He locked it and re-locked it with a chain. Emily knew what she was going to do. She had to get away before he could cuff her again. She knew she couldn't have started escaping near civilians when they entered, since he had a gun, which was, probably loaded. It was now or never.

Emily lifted her leg and kicked the Unsub in his stomach when he turned around. He grunted and bent over in visible pain. Emily ran over to him and tired to get the gun out of his hands, but she did not get hold of it, it slipped through her fingers and flew a few feet away from them. The Unsub took advantage of Emily's distraction and threw her on the floor. She hit it with a loud thump, and he threw himself at her.

Now there she was, pinned down by the weight of a full-grown man, slapping her repeatedly in the face. Finally she managed to kick him off her and she made it for the door. _Damned _chain! She fumbled with it and just when she got it open, she heard two gunshots, before the excruciating pain hit her. It was so overwhelming she couldn't make out where it originated from. She fell down on the floor, breathing heavily, not being able to see properly. Everything seemed oddly out of proportion, spinning and out of focus. She looked down and saw a dark-red hole in her left upper-arm. Her whole left side was already covered in her own blood. She raised her shaking right hand and put it on the wound. She let out a gasp of pain as someone put a hand on hers and put more pressure. It hurt like hell, but, everything slowly stopped spinning. She could see the Unsub tying her own scarf around her arm.

"Didn't want too...not yet..hadn't even gotten started...damn it! Damn you!" He murmured to himself.

When he was done he went to grab his gun and lifted Emily up in his arms. He kicked the door open and ran swiftly down the hallway, as if she wasn't carrying anything or anyone at all. There were a few people standing there, probably wondering where the gunshots were fired from, but Emily was still in shock and the Unsub ran too fast for her to see any faces or communicate with anyone at all.

When they were down in the lobby, the receptionist, the same old man that had been there when they arrived, stepped forwards.

"Hey what the hell is going on here? Why is she blee-" He never got to finish his sentence as the Unsub raised his gun and fired a shot. The receptionist fell down on the floor like a marionette who just had his strings cut off.

The few people who were there made no effort to stop the shooter from fleeing, they all screamed and tried to reach some kind of hiding place.

He threw Emily into the car as easily as if she was made out of feathers, tied her hands with that rope of his and then went to his side of the car. He started the car and drove off, making the tires screech against the concrete.

* * *

"We just got a 911-call from a hysterical woman in a motel near the state-line of Colorado! She described a lunatic carrying a gun and a woman who was bleeding and according to her descriptions I'd bet three hundred dollars she was Emily!" Garcia's excited voice rang through the loudspeakers of Morgan's phone.

"What happened down there?" JJ asked nervously.

"The Unsub checked in, got back to his car and came back with Emily. They entered their room and shortly after that there was two gunshots and then they exited, and when the receptionist tried to stop him he shot him. They lost him at the scene."

"How's Emily?" Reid asked, his voice squeaky and high-pitched.

"Their not sure of it, but according to the witnesses she was bleeding rather much from her arm. I don't think it's lethal though." Garcia said, her voice a tad less revengeful. "And listen to this, the motel was like thirty minutes from the border of Colorado!"

"So is he trying to get there?" Rossi asked.

"It seems like the best move he could do right now." Morgan said.

"Probably, and since Cheyenne is so close to the border, he would probably have crossed the border to Colorado by now." Reid told them.

"So setting up roadblocks wouldn't be helpful anymore..." Hotch thought out loud.

"Then what are we going to do?" Rossi asked.

"I think we'll have to pay Colorado a visit." Hotch said, a glint of steel in his eyes. That one, that clearly stated that he was not one to be messed with right now.

* * *

"You couldn't just do as I say, huh?" He asked her. They had just entered the state of Colorado. It was pitch-black outside and it had started to rain a moment ago. Emily didn't answer. She didn't really think that was a question meant for her to answer. Her wrists were aching from the rope the Unsub had tied her with, he had been so angry when he did it so he had tightened it too tight, and it was now cutting off the circulation in her hands. But that was not Emily's biggest problem. Her shot-wound had not been taken care of properly, and it was still hurting every time she moved her arm. She was hoping the bullets had gone through without hitting her bone too badly. If they even had gone through. She was pretty affirmative at least one of the bullets were still stuck in there somewhere. But even now, the pain was not too much for Emily Prentiss. She just bit her lip and sat tightly.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" He suddenly hit the staring-wheel with his palms.

Emily saw a gas-station slowly coming closer and to her amazement the Unsub pulled over.

"I have to eat." Her hopes slowly dispersed. Not _we _have to eat. Emily's stomach reminded her once again by growling loudly that she hadn't eaten since the day before, and now she wished she would have eaten more than that lousy bread.

"Should I take you with me or leave you in the car..?" He asked himself and looked questioningly at Emily with his blue eyes. She stared cockily back at him. She would not appear weaker than him. No way.

"I guess you'll have to stay then. Sorry." He shrugged but didn't sound too sorry. He reached out for his bag in the back-seat and pulled out a pair of handcuffs.

"Where'd you get those?"

"Emily honey it's not only cops who are allowed to have cuffs." He spoke to her as if he was speaking to a little child, or maybe someone he knew very well and was fond of. He reached out and grabbed her hands. He examined them for a minute, noticing the swelling, then narrowed his eyes and cuffed Emily's right hand to the door. Then he undid the ropes. Emily noticed it felt almost weird not being tied anymore. Then he left her sitting there without another word.

After ten minutes or so the Unsub marched back to the car, a large box and a coke in his hands. Emily's eyes lingered hungrily on the box after smelling the smell of fried chicken and french fries. He noticed this and smiled a wicked smile.

"Oh, these are not for _you_!" He laughed and nibbled on one chicken-nuggets. He laughed ones again and then he was driving off to only God knew where.

An hour or two later, he pulled the car to the side of the road again. According to the digital clock on the car it was one in the morning. Emily guessed they were in Denver, Colorado's capital. But the Unsub must have been driving around for a few hours because she remembered Reid telling her that it only took an hour and a half to drive from Cheyenne to Denver. She couldn't help herself but wonder why this had stuck with her from everything Reid rambled about. At this moment Emily would have given almost anything to have Reid there with her telling her a statistic about something completely unnecessary. She did feel quite alone right there, sitting cuffed to a car with a lunatic who probably had plans of killing her and had already shot her in her arm and beaten her face so that the swelling had yet to go down.

"Well..." The Unsub spoke with a bone-chilling voice. Emily new that whatever was coming she wouldn't like it. "Since you ruined this for us before, I don't think I'll take that chance again..."

He reached for his bag once again, but this time he took out a cloth (great!) and a little bottle. He shook the bottle before wetting the cloth with it's contents.

Emily had barely the time to take a good breath before that sickening sweet smell surrounded her with darkness.

* * *

Darkness.

There was darkness everywhere and she couldn't get out of it. She tried to scream, but she did not hear a single sound escape her lips.

She tried to move her arms, to make the darkness disappear, but she couldn't lift them. They were simply too heavy. Her legs wouldn't move either when she tried to run. Nothing. Only black, black, black, black everywhere.

She suddenly started to fall. She tried to scream for help but no one would come for her.

Emily opened her eyes, panting, only hearing the sounds of her own panicked breathing and the sounds of her heart beating against her ribcage, menacing to brake through. Cold sweat was running down her forehead and back, making her shirt stick uncomfortably to her back. Emily looked around. She was lying on her side on a cold concrete-floor. When she sat up her whole body protested, feeling weak, stiff and aching everywhere. A wave of nausea swept over her and she emptied her already empty stomach on the floor next to her. Emily hoped she wouldn't have to experience another chloroform-knock-out. The side-effects were not getting any better.

She looked around the room. It was pretty big, and empty. There was nothing to be seen except for a camera up high in one corner. A little red light kept blinking, telling her that it was on. She glared at it for one more second before standing up. Emily stood there, swaying for a minute, before she noticed she was no longer cuffed. That was good, she thought. Or bad, a little voice in her head said dramatically, if he doesn't tie you up, that means he thinks you have no chance of escaping...

Emily pushed that voice aside and went discovering the room. It didn't take long though, as she was only surrounded by four concrete-walls, one concrete-floor and one concrete-ceiling. Oh, but there was still a door. Emily hurried up to it and started pulling and pushing, but the door wouldn't move an inch. She even tried screaming, but she had been working with criminals for too long and had seen far too many movies to know screaming wouldn't help. It never did.

Somewhere, maybe far away, or maybe close, Sean O'Connor sat with another man, watching Emily wake up from a computer-screen. The corners of their lips turned upwards as they saw her walk around the room, bang her fists against the walls, screaming. She tried to open the door, which she would fail with, they knew. They saw her weakly slump up against it, her face in her hands. But, still, she wasn't crying. That was odd. The others would have been bawling their eyes out at this point, but not her. She would not give them that. And that made everything just that more exciting.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Wait what!? Chapter 8 already!? Well I thank you guys who have reviewed and liked and followed, you keep this motor running!;) I tried to answer your reviews but I'm not sure I managed... but know I've read every single one and I appreciate them so much! You opinions are gold to me!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Cm blablabla... Oh and be wa****rned; this chapter involves violence so if you are sensitive or something don't read!**

* * *

CHAPTER 8

_May the pain you have known and the conflict you have experienced give you the strength to walk through life facing each new situation with courage and optimism- Unknown._

* * *

The team, well, the team minus Emily, was installed in the police-station in Denver. The police- men were only happy to help the BAU, since Rossi knew sheriff Neil Moore from before, and Neil was very concerned about getting Agent Prentiss back, seeing his friend obviously was very concerned about his colleague. In fact, where he now was standing in one corner of the room, it was shocking to see that the members of the BAU all looked very troubled about their colleague's abduction. Yes, Neil understood them, he would have been depressed if one of his men was abducted by a crazy serial killer, but these agents looked a lot more than 'troubled'.

SSA Morgan was pacing back and forth, making his knuckles creak, looking dead-serious. Neil knew for certain he would not want to get into a fight with this man. The BAU's Media Liaison SSA Jennifer Jareau was reading Sean O'Connor's file for the hundredth time he presumed, her red, puffy eyes snapping shut every three minutes and thirty-four seconds according to Dr. Reid's calculation, who was currently scribbling notes on the transparent board they had been given. Neil watched the young man in awe, he had heard he was a genius but it was nothing like seeing him in action. The 'Wonder Boy' (he had heard the BAU's Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia refer to him as this) was mumbling something to himself and making notes Neil was sure even Einstein himself would not understand.

David was sitting next to Agent Jareau, chin in his hand apparently thinking hard. The Unit Chief Hotchner was speaking on the phone with Garcia.

The BAU had informed Neil that a man named Sean O'Connor was the best shot they had now, therefore making him their main suspect.

"Are you sure?" Hotch asked Garcia.

"One hundred and five percent sir!" Garcia said quickly, and Hotch could still hear her fingers tapping against the keyboard, probably doing ten things at ones, like only she could.

"OK, well done." Hotch ended the call. Every pair of ears in the room were instantly perked, their owners eying Hotch without blinking. "Garcia did some further digging and she found out that an old warehouse, which is no longer in use was owned by O'Connor's grandparents here in Denver. I think that's where he has gone."

"You sure? It sounds too easy to me." Morgan said doubtfully.

"It's worth a shot though, right?" Reid said.

"I don't think Sean thought we knew he was coming to Colorado, therefore making this warehouse safe." Rossi thought out loud.

"He didn't expect us to search of things related to him here in Colorado." JJ agreed. "He obviously thought we would stay back in Cheyenne trying to find him there."

"So what's the plan?" Neil gathered his courage and spoke out. Every member of the BAU (well, except for Agent Prentiss) looked at him somewhat intrigued.

"We're going to get a member of our family back." Morgan said, determined, looking at Neil as if he was stupid for thinking they would not go after Agent Prentiss immediately. The others nodded, all having a glint of hope in their eyes. Sheriff Neil Moore couldn't help but admire this team and he understood why they were the FBI's élite team; they had something no other team in the country had, they were a family, they trusted each others with their lives and would go great lengths in order to protect their family.

* * *

When Emily woke up, she had no idea how long she had been asleep, since there was no way of knowing how fast the time passed; there were no clocks in the room nor windows.

At first she wondered what had woken her, but then she realized. Someone was trying to open the door she was lying against. Emily jumped up and backed away from the door. When it opened she was shocked to see that the man who entered wasn't the one who had taken her. No, this one was much more podgy. He was only wearing something to cover his eyes, so Emily could see that he was bald. He walked closer and closer, an evil grin spreading on his eyes with every step he took. Emily backed away as much as she could, until her back hit the wall.

"You can't run from me, Emily Prentiss." He smiled and Emily didn't need more of a warning. She hit his hand away from her and brought her knee up to his crotch. He screamed when Emily's knee made contact with his "man-parts". While he bent over in pain Emily rounded him and ran to the door. She grabbed the handle and pulled as hard as she could. But the door did not move. Fuck. She turned around and saw that the man was now walking towards her, faster and angrier. Emily bent her legs, ready for him. She ducked when his fist came flying towards her face. He missed and she threw a punch at him. Emily tried not to care about the pain that radiated from her arm when she moved. If she would she would lose, since he was a lot bigger than her after all. Emily knew she has hit her goal when she heard the disgusting sound of bones braking.

At the moment Emily Prentiss was very happy about all her hours of training for the FBI, Interpole, CIA... whichever one you wanted to pick. The man she was wrestling had obviously never taken any self-defense classes, so he was easy. Emily was now sitting on him, holding his hands behind his back, and the only thing she would have needed was some cuffs to tie him up.

"What is your name?" She asked him. He didn't answer so she tightened her grip, making him grunt.

"Who are you?" She tried again. Once again he didn't answer. Emily swore and threw punches at him with full force.

"You might not want to do that." A familiar voice startled her.

Emily looked up and saw her abductor standing there, leaning against the wall, watching her, content.

"You don't want to make him mad, now don't you? It might catch up with you later on."

"Get up." He said more serious now. Emily made no movement.

"Get. Up!" He raised his voice, taking a step towards her. Emily still didn't move.

"Are. You. Stupid?" He raised a gun. Emily stood up, but her mind was spinning. Could it? No it couldn't... but those words... maybe... he had seemed fishy when she and Reid spoke to him... but could Sean O'Connor have brutally murdered seven women?

"Sean O'Connor?" Emily asked him disbelieving as the man behind her stood up.

"What? Are you surprised?" Sean asked her with a cold laugh. "Do you not think I'm a murderer?"

Emily only stood there, not knowing what to think. Thoughts fought for her attention inside her head. _Should she have suspected him? Should she have taken him into custody? Did the team know he was their suspect? And what about the other man?_

"Now Emily I want you to be good, will you?" Sean told her. The other man grabbed her hands and harshly pulled them behind her back. When Emily tried to fight him, Sean stepped closer to her.

"No, no, no.." He contoured her face with the barrel of his gun. Emily tensed up, but allowed the other man to cuff her.

"Come on princess." Sean said and gestured to the other man to bring Emily with him. Emily's eyes narrowed and shot daggers at him; 'Princess' was Morgan's nickname for her. She didn't especially like it, but that didn't mean she wanted him to stop. But she'd never admit that to him.

They blindfolded her and then they walked through cold hallways, she assumed. Where were they? Obviously some kind of big house, a mansion or a warehouse maybe. They walked through a couple of halls, taking rights there and lefts there. Emily lost count. Finally they guided her through a door into another room. When they removed the blindfold Emily noticed that this room was a lot smaller than the original one and it had a chair in the middle with restraints on it. Emily already knew that she was destined to be the one sitting in it. And they lead her to it and sat her down, strapping her legs and arms to the chair.

Sean's helper stepped back, while Sean walked around her chair. He spun the gun around his index finger, smiling.

"Well, well, well. Almighty Supervisory Special Agent Emily Prentiss, strapped down by an ordinary man. See, you are not so special after all..." He said, still circling around her like a hawk waiting for it's pray. Emily's eyes narrowed; Sean was obviously delusional, thinking Emily saw herself as a God, better than everyone else. Her profiler-side kicked in, she desperately needed it to survive.

"Yes I am." Emily said, sitting up straight. " And _you_ will not get me to break."

She needed to play according to his rules, she concluded that if she did so, he would have to continue and try to break her until she finally did, and she sure hoped she would buy the team enough time. And braking her was obviously what he wanted, and when he had done just that he would most likely kill her.

"Oh you think so?" Sean stopped in front of her and leaned closer to her face. Emily looked bravely back at him, not one muscle in her face twisting.

"You think you're so damned good now, huh?" Sean looked at her with loathing in his eyes. "But you are not. _You _are the one sitting in this chair, bound. _You _are the one who will die. _You _will loose, Emily Prentiss. And I will send your dead body straight to you team!"

Emily spit in his face. He could do whatever he wanted to her, but when it came to her team...

"You will not even _touch _them!" She said with so much menace in her voice she could.

Sean withdrew his body from her, slowly wiping Emily's spit away. When he stopped he looked at her with a look that would get any lesser woman than Emily Prentiss to back down.

"You shouldn't have done that." He said in a ice-cold tone.

Sean walked over to a bag Emily hadn't noticed before and pulled out a knife. Emily tried to shut down the part of her brain that was aware of the moment, and she tried really hard to focus on thoughts about her partners somewhere back in a police station trying to find her as Sean walked closer, knife in hand.

Sean raised the knife and cut Emily on her chest. Emily concentrated even more on memories with her team as the cold steel cut her pale skin open, making warm, sticky blood run down her chest. It hurt, but Emily shut it away. Sean raised his knife how many times more Emily didn't know, she lost count after thirty. She assumed Sean wasn't cutting too deep, since he kept asking her to confess between cuts. As Emily did not open her mouth, not once even to scream, he continued. She felt like if she would move, all of her intestines would fall out of her scarred body. Sean cut her everywhere; her chest, her arms, her thigh, but she did not quiver. At last Sean got frustrated and in one swift movement he had the knife buried deep in Emily's stomach. This time she couldn't help it, she screamed out as the pain seared through her emaciated, tired and abused body, making every nerve in her body scream out. Emily's head fell forwards, her whole body falling back in the chair. The pain was simply too much to pile onto the rest of her wounds.

"Finally. I thought she had gone mute!" Sean said to his assistant, making him chuckle.

"Now take this knife, and send it to our dear BAU, I think they'll like our gift." He ordered the other man, getting a short "Yes sir!" as an answer.

Emily just sat there, blackness threatening to invade her. She tried pushing it away, but it crept closer and closer. She heard voices in the distance, but she didn't make out what they were saying. Suddenly someone put pressure on her stab-wound, making her moan tiredly.

"I know, Emily, it hurts. But if you weren't so stubborn we could end this a lot faster and easier." Sean's voice somehow managed to get into her head.

"Never" She spit out, using the last of her strength.

"Shh... don't talk..." Sean was binding something around her stomach, probably bandage. Emily knew he didn't want her to die easily, that was why he was taking care of the wounds he inflicted. He had now gone to disinfecting the cut-wounds.

"Boss, we need to move!" A nervous voice sounded unusually high.

"What is it?" Sean snapped.

"_They_ are coming!"

"What!? How did they know we are here!?" Sean panicked.

"I don't know man but we gotta move!"

"Fuck! You take her, fast!" Sean said, loosening her restraints. The last thing Emily saw before she slipped into blissful unconsciousness without pain, was someone making his way towards her, and then that awful sweet smell taking over, but Emily didn't even try to fight it. She welcomed it.

* * *

**UUUhhh... please review!;)**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Here ya go:) Thanks for the wonderful reviews,this one's a bit different (a tad more team-stuff and less Prentiss), but I hope ya still like it! (And it's weird, this chapter's got the most words in it even though it seemed short!) Oh and please continue to review, I love reading 'em!  
**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds nor Harry Potter (I know it's weird but read on to find out!)**

* * *

CHAPTER 9

_Quilt is anger directed at ourselves- at what we did or did not do. Resentment is anger directed at others- at what they did or did not do. -Peter McWilliams_

* * *

Morgan jumped out of the SUV, sirens blasting in his ears, seeing nothing but the entrance of the warehouse they thought Sean O'Connory was holding Emily captive. He began running, knowing the others would follow him with the SWAT-team. He pulled out his Glock 17 and opened the door, which was surprisingly not locked. The SWAT-team rushed past him, Hotch after one group and Reid after the other. Morgan looked around and saw Rossi and JJ behind him. He nodded at them and started walking down an empty hallway. It was cold and dark, so they had to use their flashlights. There was nothing to be seen except for dust and darkness. Morgan spun around when JJ suddenly screamed out, but it was only a rat. He glared at her for a moment, FBI agents shouldn't be screaming because of rats. They had to clear at least a dozen rooms before something else happened. Morgan heard a shot and sensed Rossi collapsing behind him. He got down behind a corner and saw JJ cover Rossi, who was bleeding from his thigh, looking pretty pissed. The ear-piece in his ear was filled with voices asking if the others were okay, others asking "What was that?" But Morgan didn't have time to answer them before another shot echoed through the empty, or seemingly empty hallway. JJ screamed out in pain and sunk down next to Rossi. She was hit in the thigh as well. Morgan squinted in the darkness, trying to make out their invisible shooter, waving his gun in the air, pointing it everywhere, but he didn't see anyone or anything.

"Morgan! Behind you!" Rossi shouted but it was too late.

Morgan was hit in the head with something hard, probably a gun barrel. He spun around, stars dancing around in front his eyes. He saw someone tower in front of him, so he raised his gun. He heard JJ and Rossi do the same behind him.

"Put your hands down!" Morgan shouted at him.

His unknown attacker only chuckled. Then someone appeared next to him, carrying someone else, who was a lot smaller and thinner than the other two were.

"I wouldn't do that, dear agents!" The attacker smiled. "You wouldn't want to be responsible for our lovely Emily's death, now would you?"

And then Morgan saw who the man was carrying, it was indeed Emily. The man was holding a gun against her head, smiling devilishly. Emily was unconscious, her skin pale in the darkness, and Morgan saw cuts and bruises all over her body. Her shirt and pants were soaked in blood, probably her own, they were teared and cut, they too. Morgan swallowed his anger down, him being killed wouldn't help Emily. She looked scary like the victims Morgan had seen on the BAU's screen while they got briefed on the case only four days ago, but it seemed like a lifetime ago.

"How do we know she's not dead yet?" Rossi's voice sounded from somewhere far away.

"You'll just have to take our word on it..." The man not carrying Emily said. The other man smiled and emphasized the other man, obviously the leader's point by hitting Emily in the head with the gun, making her moan softly and tiredly.

"You son of a bitch...!" Morgan took an angry step towards the man.

"Derek! Stop!" JJ screamed, terrified.

Morgan stopped himself just in time. The bigger man pressed his gun forcefully to Emily's skull, clicking the safety off, looking dead-serious. The other man smiled at Morgan, and Morgan suddenly recognized him, he was O'Connor. And he had apparently a helper.

"That's what I thought... Now, I want to get away, without you following us. Otherwise..." O'Connor said and pointed at Emily whilst making a sign with his hand, demonstrating a throat being slashed open. "Why don't you all give me your guns? Put them down on the floor and slide them to me."

Morgan bowed down, not taking his eyes off of O'Connor and slid his gun towards him. JJ and Rossi did the same. O'Connor picked up all three Glocks then smiled at Morgan once more and then started walking. The other man followed him with a puppet-like Prentiss, still lying motionless in his big arms.

Morgan wanted nothing more to run and grab her and take her away from those men, and hold her in his arms, safe. But he did not move. He waited few minutes before he rushed to help JJ and Rossi. They both looked to have been shot pretty cleanly in the thigh. Morgan asked for help through his earpiece, telling the other teams that two agents were down.

Soon footsteps could be heard, and then Hotch and Reid were visible, running through the hallway towards the three agents on the floor, the SWAT-team running behind them, clearing the other rooms, shouting 'clear', although Morgan already knew they were clear. O'Connor wouldn't stay hanging around any longer than necessary.

"What happened!?" Hotch asked as soon as he reached his agents.

"We need paramedics, JJ and Rossi have been shot!" Morgan told him.

When Morgan was sure JJ and Rossi were safe in the hands of the paramedics, he told Hotch what had happened, Hotch's expression darkening with every new detail Morgan told.

"So we have _two _Unsubs?" Hotch asked finally.

"It appears so, but O'Connory is the leader." Morgan explained. "The other one was just there to carry Prentiss and help with other stuff. O'Connory is clearly the one holding the reins. Probably the one doing the torturing too."

"See if Garcia can find out who the other Unsub is."

Morgan nodded and walked out, grabbing his phone from his pocket. He pushed on a speed-dial button, and Garcia's number appeared on the screen.

"Hey Hot stuff!" Her happy voice made him a little bit happier, despite of the horrible situation he was in. "How did it go? Is my favorite super-bad-ass-agent back in safety?"

Morgan sighed, he hated to let Garcia down.

"No Sweet-Cheeks, he still got her." Morgan chose not to tell her all the details, she didn't need to be more shaken than what she already was.

"But apparently O'Connor has a partner in crime. Can you try to see if you can find anyone who looks suspicious? He was pretty big, bald and a bit overweight. I'd say he was between his late thirties to early fifties."

"I'll call you back." Garcia's broken voice rang through the phone.

Morgan felt if possible even more depressed. He had let down the two most important women in his life. Garcia was alone in her dungeon without him to cheer her up, and Emily... Emily was somewhere being tortured by that bastard O'Connory. They had been so close. _He _had been so close and yet he had failed to bring her back. Morgan hoped she could stand against O'Connory and his partner a while longer. The things they had already managed to do to her... but, she hadn't looked completely dead, though. If one could look almost dead, that was what she had looked like. He remembered every single detail, the way her hair had fallen around her face and shoulders, the way her clothes were torn and the cuts on her face and the rest of her body...the blood... Morgan shuddered at his thoughts in the frisky night-air. He looked up and saw that there was not a single cloud in the sky, which was completely black, with the exception of the thousands of small twinkling stars and the moon, which was current in it's first house.

After a while someone joined Morgan. He looked to his right and saw a tired Reid standing next to him. Reid looked older than ever before, his clothes hanging sagging from the skinny man, who was looking up at the sky, letting the stars shine up his tired face with giant bags under his eyes. It was clear he had been living on only coffee for a few days.

"Nice night, huh?" He asked Morgan conversationally.

"Yeah. How are JJ and Rossi?"

"They were taken to the hospital, but they should be fine. Probably walking around on sticks for a while though." Reid chuckled slightly.

It was weird, Morgan thought. Reid hadn't drowned him in boring statistics or anything that was like him. Well, actually, this whole situation was weird. They shouldn't have had to be there, outside a warehouse looking for Prentiss. She should have been with them trying to catch this O'Connory-guy. She should have been with Morgan, making fun of Reid or talking about Vonnegut with him. Morgan missed Emily. He even missed the thought of her.

"Did they find anything in there?" Morgan made a gesture towards the warehouse.

"A knife with Emily's blood, a chair with Emily's blood, and more of her blood. Nothing more right now." Reid said but seemed to be far, far away.

Morgan felt anger boil up inside him, but he knew better than to show it.

"What about Penelope?" Reid asked Morgan but still didn't look at him.

"I don't know. She said she'd call me back." Morgan shrugged.

None of them felt the need to say anything more, so they just stood there, staring up at the sky, wondering why everything seemed so normal when nothing was normal.

* * *

Emily ran along a dark corridor. There were no windows nor lights, but there still seemed to be light coming from somewhere or nowhere. The faster Emily ran, the slower she seemed to go. Suddenly she saw Morgan at the end of the corridor, and she tried to scream for him. But Morgan didn't move, he only smiled. But his smile wasn't the warm, friendly smile she was used to. It seemed oddly cold, twisted and mean. Emily tried to stop running, but now she seemed to be running faster. Morgan lifted his arms as if to welcome her, but suddenly Emily realized that Morgan had no arms. Instead there were hideous-looking giant insect-arms growing out of his shoulders. Finally, she stopped a few feet away from him.

"What's the matter Emily?" He asked her in a cold voice, reminding her a bit of Lord Voldemort's voice in the Harry Potter films.

Emily took a step back, and at the instance Morgan changed. He had his normal human arms and his face softened and looked hurt. Then he was gone and replaced by Hotch, who seemed to tower over her, his face contracted with anger, and he looked angrier than Emily ever had seen him.

"I am firing you Prentiss. I cannot lead a team that is incomplete. You incomplete it. You aren't good enough. I have no idea how you even made it to my team. It must have been your mother pulling strings for you, huh?"

"I... no! Give me another chance please!" She was on her knees, tears streaming down her face. "Give me another chance..."

Hotch laughed coldly and then she was looking up at a giant crying Penelope. Emily got up and dried her tears. Penelope's sulking was the only thing she could hear.

"Dead... I can't believe it! Oh my God it's all my fault!" Penelope cried. Suddenly Emily realized it was her Penelope was talking about.

"No! Pen, I'm right here!" Emily said desperately.

"I should have been a better hacker... I should have found her..." Penelope continued to sob, not appearing to hear or see Emily at all.

Emily began to panic and began screaming. Her eyes watered and she was soon crying hysterically like the giant Penelope in front of her. Suddenly she was overcome with nausea and she threw up. It helped for a second before the nausea returned in full force and she threw up twice more. Then she began feeling burning all over her body. She tried to move her hands, but she couldn't. In fact, her whole body seemed oddly frozen. Why was it dark everywhere? She thought, but then realized she just hadn't opened her eyes. As she did, she saw nothing at first, but then gradually a room came in focus. She threw up once more all over herself, feeling the warm liquid drop down her body, the stinking smell cutting off all other smells. Her throat was burning horribly, but wasn't that normal after having thrown up four times in a row?

Emily soon noticed she was lying on her side, hands tied together, feet tied together. She appeared to be lying on something hard, but it was covered with a gray mat. There had been no corridor and no insect-Morgan nor an angry Hotch or a sobbing Penelope. It had all been a dream. Suddenly Emily noticed that the floor was moving. Floors don't move, don't they? Maybe she was still dreaming. After a few seconds Emily heard two voices being engaged in a heated conversation. She looked up and noticed the floor was indeed moving because she was in a van. And there was someone driving it. The someone was talking with someone else who was sitting on the passenger's seat. Emily couldn't get a good look at them, being tied down as she was.

"Man did you get a look at her? She looked _dead_! As far as I know she _is _dead!" One of the someones said with a Mexican accent.

The other one grunted.

"Calm down!" Emily noticed he was talking in Spanish. "We only need to get her to that place they said. We aren't doing anything wrong!" He said lazily.

"Is driving with a dead woman on board not wrong!?" The other almost shouted.

Emily tried to tell them that she was very much a live, but she couldn't get a sound out. _Duck-taped, of course._ She couldn't help rolling her eyes. So she only laid there, listening to the men's bickering, until they stopped the car after a good hour. They jumped out and one of them opened her door and got in with her. This was not O'Connory nor his helper. This one had darker skin and dark-brown hair and brown eyes.

Emily tried telling him she was not dead, and when he saw her move he let out a frightened sound and moved away from her.

"Angelo!" He cried for the other man. "Angelo! She's not dead! Call the boss and ask him what we should do!"

Emily heard the other man talk with someone.

"Yes. I don't know sir. We stopped and she was awake. In the bag? Oh, Okay. What? You sure, sir? Alright, bye."

"What did he say?" Angelo stuck his head into the van, looked at Emily for a second then motioned the other man to come with him. Emily didn't hear what they said, but when the man who wasn't Angelo crept in again, he was holding something in his hand. A cloth. Emily's eyes widened and she tried telling the man that she couldn't take another dose of chloroform, but he didn't seem to understand her and soon the sweet smell surrounded her from everywhere and she was out before she even could throw up again.

* * *

**OK, now tell me, was it too weird or was it OK? Next chapter'll be more Prentiss, I swear! (But beware, these characters kinda do the opposite of what I want them to, they do the thinking and acting and I do the writing! This story is turning out waaay more different than what I originally had planned!)**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: You're getting a treat, this one's MASSIVE! Hope ya like it, please review it will you...?;)**

**Thanks to those brave ****souls who have reviewed, thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!**

**Disclaimer: Criminal Minds is not owned by me. I am not the owner of Criminal Minds. I do not own Criminal Minds. Me. Not. Own. Criminal Minds.**

* * *

CHAPTER 10

_Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.- Khalil Gibran_

* * *

This time, Emily had no dreams when she lay unconscious thanks to the chloroform. She was floating somewhere in the dark abyss, not feeling, not seeing, not thinking. It was a blissful state of ignorance, where she did not have to worry about how to find home. She existed, but that was it. In some ways this felt like sleeping, the kind of deep sleep you can experience when you're exhausted, and in the sleep you have no dreams, none at all.

Every now and then she felt like some sounds still managed to make their ways into her foggy mind. Once she swore she heard two men talking about something, the other screaming at the other one. That happened once or twice, maybe even three times, she couldn't be sure. Another time she felt like something was shaking her, maybe smacking her. But that feeling lasted for about a nanosecond, before she sank into that state of existence where she didn't have to exist, instantly forgetting what she had felt.

After what felt like a million years, or maybe it was only five minutes, who knew, Emily slowly started coming to her senses. At first she only felt only the bothering pulling at her wrists. That feeling seemed to magnify with each second, making Emily realize her head was pounding too. Slowly but surely she gradually began feeling every aching little part of her tired body. She lifted her head at a very slow pace, eyes still closed. She was sitting on a chair, that she knew for sure.

Emily Prentiss was not one to question her decisions. But now, her hands tied behind her back, feet tied to the chair she was sitting on, her whole body feeling tired, weak and aching, she couldn't help herself wonder, if it had been the best of ideas to walk around alone, with a sadist on the spree.

She let out a moan as she shifted in her seat. Every damned part of her body hurt. She tried to think, to profile this guy who had taken her. But, her head seemed oddly slow, and as much as she wanted it, she couldn't get her thoughts running. She remembered getting out of her car to check something, and then, someone must have walked up to her from behind as she didn't see anyone, and, by the feeling of her body, tased her. Wait? Had that really happened? That thought seemed to be the only one she could come up with, but somehow it didn't feel real. And she didn't recall walking around alone anywhere, she had always been surrounded by someone of the team or a police-man at the station they were at... Well, this wasn't doing her anything good, so, she shook her head and opened her eyes.

Obviously, she was in a basement. The only window she could see from her highly restricted seat in the middle of the room, was high up on the wall, close to the ceiling and very small. A small amount of light sought it's way in to the room, which wasn't light up by anything else. There wasn't much light, but only enough to let Emily see.

The walls of the room she was in were completely bare and gray, the floor was covered by a thin layer of dust, which thickened closer to the walls. But where she sat there was no dust to be seen, telling Emily this room was used often. Well, not often, but often to do things like tie somebody up and let them sit in the middle of the room. There were almost no furniture in the room (except for the damned chair she was stuck on), but a chair similar to hers in front of her, next to a camera, that only hours ago had shot some kind of footage of her, and had been sent to the BAU. But Emily was unaware of that, in fact, she had no recollection of even being placed in the room. So, all she could do now, was to do her best in profiling the guy and wishing, hoping that her teammates, her family from the BAU would find her.

As Emily sat on the chair for a long, long time it felt like, her mind was becoming clearer and clearer. She remembered talking to Morgan, that fluttering feeling in the pit of her stomach. Somehow every detail about him seemed clear. How his eyes had sparkled, how he had smiled at her, making her feel like she was the only human left on the world except for him. Then they had said goodnight. It was obviously evening. But what had happened next? She must have gone to bed... or...? Then it all became clear. How someone had woken her up with a knife. Then they had given her that awful smelling cloth, putting her to sleep. Emily's stomach turned by only the thought of chloroform.

The rest of the days became clear as Emily went through day by day in her mind. She noticed she had no difficulties imagining things that had not happened. That was probably something chloroform did to you when you had been given it many days in a row. Her shot-wound had been taken care of properly and it almost didn't hurt at all. Same was with the knife-wounds she bore all over her body, some of the deeper ones stung a bit, otherwise she was fine. The thing that hurt the most was a stab-wound in her stomach. It had obviously not hit any major organs, otherwise she would have been dead already, and it too had been taken care of, so Emily concluded it was not mortal.

A door to the basement clicked open and a man entered. He looked familiar... his dark hair, blue eyes that were looking so patronizing somehow, mean, but still happy, in a weird way.

"Finally. I thought you'd never wake up again!" His voice was the trigger Emily needed. It was Sean O'Connory. She didn't answer, only watched him with a blank expression.

"I reckon you're hungry? It's been, what, five, four days since you've eaten? You must be starving!" Emily silently agreed with him. She _was _starving.

O'Connor motioned for a man Emily hadn't noticed before to give her something. The man, big and bald walked over to Emily and uncuffed her. Emily fell down with a thump and a moan on the ground, she was just too weak not to. O'Connory laughed coldly and walked up to her. He kicked her over, so she was lying on her back. His icy blue eyes traveled along her body, taking in every detail and every wound her had inflicted her. Emily lay down, she felt like even if she tried to move, it would just be a pathetic try leading to failure.

"You know, you're holding on quite well. All of the others had broken by now. But you haven't." O'Connory looked at her in amazement. But he soon shrugged it off and put a plate and a glass next to her, then he and his companion left Emily on her own again. She slowly and painfully lifted herself from the cold floor and began devouring the bit of bread with cheese. Feeling a bit better, she stood up and walked around the basement. The small window was too high up for her to reach, and the chair wasn't moving from its place in the middle of the room.

A good half an hour later O'Connory and the other man returned to the room. They watched Emily for a moment, then they suddenly went to grab her with joined force. Emily tried to free herself but soon she was hung up on the wall, her hands over her head, feet barely touching the floor. Her wrists hurt like hell now, but she ignored it. The men stepped back, looking at her with lust in their eyes, O'Connory pushing a button on the camera, making a little red light flash on and off. It was recording...

Emily tried to kick them but her feet were tied to the wall too, and her lousy attempts at hurt _them _made the men chuckle.

O'Connory walked to the door again, and disappeared for a moment, while the other man stepped closer to Emily, uncomfortably close, letting his hands explore her, and travel to places he had no business in touching. Emily closed her eyes, hoping it would soon be over. She couldn't bear looking at the man's lustful face one second longer while he explored her, breathing heavily, murmuring something she couldn't make out.

"Get off of her." O'Connory was back. The man quickly stepped back, a flash of disappointment cursing across his face.

O'Connory walked closer, holding a wire. Emily knew what was coming next. She watched with horror as he wound the wires around her fingers, a smile of pleasure spreading across his face. When he was done he stepped back to admire his work. He licked his lips and stared with lustful eyes at the sight in front of him. He hoped indeed this woman would be as good as he had imagined, after everything he had gone through for her only to get to this point...

O'Connory smiled and returned his full attention to Emily.

"Get out." He said to the other man. When he had safely exited, O'Connory looked back at Emily.

"Now let's see how good you exactly are." He shocked her, making Emily involuntarily scream out in pain. The electricity ripped through her body. He macro-shocked her again and again, Emily screaming out in pain every time as he did so.

"Say it... just tell me to stop and I will!" O'Connory hissed and pushed the button again, making the electricity cursing through her battered body, Emily gritted her teeth, as much as she wanted him to stop, she knew that begging him to would be her death-sentence.

"Well... isn't this working?" O'Connory said, half pleased and half pissed. "Should we move on?"

Emily didn't answer him. She hung limply from her restraints, too weak to hold herself up.

* * *

Garcia was sitting in her den, watching the computers like a hawk. She was still trying to find out who the other man apart from Sean O'Connory was, and was trying to figure out where they were lurking. She had just gotten back from getting a cup of coffee, since she didn't want to go home to sleep in case the team needed her for something.

Nothing major had happened since she had gotten a picture of Emily sitting on a chair, looking dead. Garcia had almost flipped and booked herself a plane ticket to the next flight to Denver.

Suddenly something popped up on one of her screens. She had gotten a possible second Unsub. His name was Mike Murray. He was matching the descriptions Morgan had given her and he was employed by the same cleaning-firm O'Connory was. Neither one of them had gone to work for three days, so he was definitely the one they were looking for. He had used his credit-card yesterday at some gas-station to by some food and other necessities one could by without raising any kind of suspicion.

Garcia was about to dial Hotch's number as something else popped up on her screen. An email. She clicked on it and a video popped up on her screen. She wasn't sure what she was seeing, but there was definitely someone partly sitting, partly lying on a chair, not moving. The camera zoomed in on the person's face, and Garcia let out a horrified scream. It was her Emily. It was her Emily and at the same time not her Emily, as Emily didn't look like Emily. She was pale, had dark bags under her eyes and her left side of her face was horribly blue and red and swollen, not looking so different from what she had looked like on the picture from earlier.

Garcia called the rest of the team up on her computer. Every time she saw her team-members' faces, she would calm down, but not this time. Garcia hyperventilated and tried to explain the situation at the same time. At last Morgan interfered and got Garcia to somewhat calmly explain what had happened. Hotch told Garcia to send the video to their computer back in Denver, and try to find out from where the video was being sent. Garcia nodded fiercely, still visibly shaken but she forced herself to get a grip, for Emily's sake.

"Hang in there kitten..." She murmured to Emily through her screen, grabbing one of her colorful, furry things from her desk, squeezing it whilst letting her computer track the seed down.

All of a sudden, the video changed. Garcia was now staring at Emily fastened to a wall, hands over her head. This time she was very awake. Emily made a motion towards a man, who was Sean O'Connory, and who wasn't bothering to wear a mask as he knew very well indeed that the BAU were aware of his identity.

Garcia was shocked to hear that this time the video had sound. The man chuckled. Then he withdrew himself from Garcia's sight and another one walked up, probably Mike Murray. He stood there, feeling Emily up, while she tried to pull herself away from him, not managing very well. Garcia's eyes watered up while she simultaneously saw Morgan explode with anger on one of her other screens.

"Get off of her." A voice commanded the man, and he instantly stepped back into the shadows of the room. Garcia saw with exasperation O'Connory winding wires around Emily's fingers, then she busted out crying once again as Emily's scream filled her room and her body involuntarily jumping. Garcia covered her ears, not wanting to hear the piercing screams and her eyes as her friend's body jump over and over again, it's owner trying not to scream out in pain, but succeeding poorly.

"Well... isn't this working?" O'Connory's voice sounded. "Should we move on?"

* * *

In Denver the team was staring at their computer, their expressions all differing from one another. Sheriff Neil More wasn't sitting where he could see the computer, and, quite frankly, he wasn't sure he would have wanted to. He heard a woman scream in pain, sending shivers down his spine, telling him that he didn't indeed want to look. Neil More studied the members of the BAU instead. Agent Hotch was staring at the computer, his face unreadable, put if there was anything there was rage. Agent Jareau was looking rather defeated at the screen, her eyes wet, her face filled with pain. Agent Reid was looking horrified. His eyes were big as saucers and his mouth formed an 'o', leaving the genius looking quite dumber than what he actually was. Agent Rossi was watching the screen sadly, probably not content with himself at not preventing this from happening. He looked like a father would look at his daughter being tortured, if one could imagine that look. Agent Morgan wasn't looking at the screen at all, he was walking around, fuming, throwing punches in the air every now and then, not caring if he did hit something living or not. Neil shuddered from the thought of having to fight with that man.

* * *

Rossi shook his head and walked away from the computer he too. Watching the agent he highly respected, had grown fond of and shared a father-daughter-like relationship with now being repeatedly forced to put her head into a bucket of water and being harshly pulled out just as she was beginning to drown, making her cough and spit out water, was too much for him.

Rossi knew that O'Connory was only waiting for Emily to beg him to stop, and then he would end it all, and Rossi did not want to be looking at Emily's corpse next time he ever saw her again. He could almost imagine how Emily was feeling; her body slowly growing weaker and weaker, not being able to push the man off of her, her head plunged in the water over and over again, feeling the burn in her lungs and then having to breathe in, making the water enter her lungs, choking her and then when she was beginning to see stars, she was brought up again, and she could gulp for air, trying to get rid of the water in her lungs, but that becoming harder and harder with every new plunge she took.

Rossi returned to the rest, and saw O'Connory throw Emily away from him, walking angrily over to her and kick her in the stomach. Rossi growled; he did not like women getting hit, or anyone getting kicked when they already were down. Emily tried to get up once, but O'Connory kicked her down again, and this time she didn't move anymore.

"I told her, all she had to do was ask me to stop, and I would have." O'Connory was now looking directly at the camera, looking sincere. "But she wouldn't. I guess we'll have to continue later then. Have fun, members of the BAU." He shrugged and kicked Emily once more on the way out. She rolled a bit but stayed still, not even trying to protect herself from the blow coming at her.

"We have to do something quick, man!" Morgan's concerned voice shook Rossi to the present. "She won't hang on much longer, I don't care what she would say but she's going to bend soon."

"I know." Hotch agreed promptly. "Garcia, have you found anything?"

Garcia threw her furry animal away and got back into work-mode. She wiped her face and blew her nose before she answered.

"The second Unsub is Mike Murray, 47, lives alone, works at the same cleaning-firm O'Connory does, neither of them has been to work in the past three days. He lives about forty minutes from you guys."

"Let's go then!" JJ suddenly said loudly, her voice not quivering a bit. She stood up and looked at the rest with a determined stare. This was it.

* * *

**PS... thank you to Guest for letting me know I made a mistake; I told y'all Emily threw up four times (yummy!), but then she all of a sudden was duck-taped... what a mystery huh? Well let's say she wasn't duck-taped at first, and then the man duck-taped her when they stopped, fair enough? Or maybe she managed to throw up although her mouth was taped and the vomit just- no, I'll stop there thank you!**

**PPS to all you who have been worried Em couldn't hang on, you know her, she'll push herself until there's nothing left, so she hung on until now! But as you know _even _Emily can't take _everything _at the end, so you'll just have to wait and see what happens!;)**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Woo! Fiinally chapter 11:) Sorry, it took me a bit longer to update, but now here you have it! Thank you to those who have reviewed, liked, followed and stuff:) Keep it up please!**

**Will the team finally save Em...? Oh and this one's partly Emily's POV, and then Morgan's POV, since you may not get a completely clear view of the situation due to Emily's..situation...  
**

**Disclaimer: No, I do not own Criminal Minds or any of it's awesome characters.**

* * *

CHAPTER 11

_'I just want one person I can rescue and I want one person who needs me. Who can't live without me. I want to be a hero, but not just one time.'- Chuck Palahniuk, Choke_

* * *

Emily lay soaked on the cold concrete-floor. She was trembling, feeling really cold and tired. She had been lying there for God knows how long. The concrete-floor seemed colder and harder than before, but as much as Emily wanted to, she couldn't make herself get up. O'Connory and his assistant hadn't even bothered tying her up again, after their last assault, that was one good thing, at least. It hurt to only breathe, the air feeling like fire as she respired it. And nothing seemed to hurt lesser than before. If possible just more.

Emily gathered her strength and managed to lift her eyelids, which seemed like a huge accomplishment. The room seemed to be the same, except for looking like it had been raining inside and for being a little blurrier than before. It was then Emily perceived that the door was still open. Her captors obviously didn't think she would manage to flee. She even doubted herself, which used to be something Emily Prentiss never used to do, something her mother had taught her.

Emily bit her lip and stood up. It was hard, but when she finally got up, she stood there, swaying, darkness creeping in on her from the corners of her eyes. Suddenly she found herself falling down back on the floor. She hit her hand quite a bit while she tried to stop her fall, but Emily assumed it was only sprained, since it didn't hurt enough to be broken, so she gave it another try. This time she managed to stay upright, although the same darkness crept over her.

Emily started walking, taking small steps, thus maneuvering herself across the room without sinking down again. When finally at the door, she heard muffled sounds of men talking and there was some other noises too, but she couldn't place them. She could determine that they were still not threateningly close to her though, so she continued walking. There was a staircase, a very steep and slim one. With some effort, she climbed, feeling the harsh wood under her maltreated hands and feet, which were bare, at which point that had happened, she didn't know.

At the top of the staircase, there was another door, this one still ajar as well. The voices were now much closer, Emily noticed with a worrying pinch deep down in her stomach. Emily opened the door slowly, making it creek just a bit.

"What was that?" She heard one of the men ask.

"Probably just the wind." The other brushed it off.

They continued talking, to Emily's gratitude, seemingly having a friendly conversation. Emily peeked out from behind the door, but all she saw was just another room, which didn't differ from other rooms she had been in, well, anyways, there was four walls, which was enough for her. At the end of the rectangular room, there was a third door. Emily walked over to it, and she could now hear the voices crystal-clearly. She peeped in. O'Connory and the other guy were sitting, eating pizza whilst watching TV. The room looked like the living-room, with a kitchenette and, behind the sofa were the men were sitting, was the front-door.

Emily retreated back behind the door, breathing heavily. Her adrenaline had started pumping when she had seen her way out, this was the closest she had been to an escape ever since she was taken. But even now, her body filled with adrenaline, she had to consider the fact that she was one against two full-grown men, and she herself was a good fighter, but now she wasn't at her a-game and even if she had been, taking out _two _men would have been quite a task.

Leaning against the yellowish wall, Emily closed her eyes. She had to somehow separate the men. That was her only chance. She opened her eyes again and limped back to the door leading to the staircase down to the basement. Emily stood at the top of the stairs, and almost slammed the door shut in front of her. She heard a "What was that!?" again, and hurried steps grew louder. Emily watched the handle of the door being pushed down, as if in slow-motion, and bent her knees, ready to pounce.

Mike Murray only had the time to contract his face in confusion and surprise, before his captive jumped at him. Emily hit and scratched every part of his body she could get her hands on, seeing red. But she could feel herself getting weaker and weaker surprisingly quickly, and Mike Murray could feel that in her blows too. He took advantage of that and grabbed her hand which she had been hitting him with, and with a disgusting sound, he twisted it, snapping the bone in half. Emily let out a little screech of pain before she could stop herself.

"What is it Murray?" She heard O'Connory ask from the living-room, but he didn't seem to be coming for Murray, and before Emily had the time to look back at Murray, he pushed her, and she was tossed down the stairs. Emily fell painfully down, holding her hands over her head, trying to protect it. She landed heavily at the foot of the stairs, not being able to breathe properly. She had hit her head pretty badly, feeling pounding and a contorted image of someone coming down the stairs in front of her. Emily didn't know why, but her mind told her to run from him, so she began crawling backwards, unable to stand up. But he came closer and closer even though Emily's efforts.

His face was clear amongst the rest of blurry colors and things, and he didn't look too happy. He kicked Emily with all his force in her stomach, causing Emily to spit out blood.

He said something else that Emily couldn't make out, but she didn't mistake herself on his tone of voice; it was angry.

He kicked her again, Emily crying out in pain as more blood flood into her mouth. She had tears in her eyes, and the pain was overwhelming. She felt a blow at her face this time, her jaw exploding in pain. Everything was hurting so bad, Emily couldn't almost see. She wanted to throw up but couldn't and she wasn't seeing anything properly anymore.

Somebody suddenly grabbed her hair and pulled her up, steadying her on themselves. Emily felt something cold on her neck and someone screamed. She began feeling pain in her neck, and she tried pushing the hand that was hurting her away, but then she jumped as she suddenly heard many loud, loud bangs. The someone who was holding her up suddenly wasn't there anymore. She fell down on the cold hard floor. Then she saw figures running closer to her. She couldn't see who they were, but they were all saying something to her. Her mind told her body to get away from them, get away! The voice screamed at her.

Sniffling she tried getting away, but a pair of strong hands grabbed her shoulders. Emily screamed out in pain and fear, throwing a weak punch at her unknown attacker. Someone else grabbed her hands, saying something incomprehensible to her. Emily began crying. She couldn't get away, and her body gave up on her. It slumped down, weighing itself against the person who was holding her shoulders. They cradled her in her arms, and she cried.

It had been a long time since she felt the body-heat of another human, and her instincts told her it was okay. The one holding her in their arms, stroke her face carefully. Emily stopped fighting back. She sighed and the last thing she saw was Morgan. Morgan? Morgan!

Emily tried fighting back the darkness that once again was sweeping over her.

"Shh... it's okay Princess. I'm right here... I'm right here." She heard Morgan's voice. It soothed her and she gave into the darkness. She was going to be OK. She was safe.

* * *

Morgan was driving the SUV, sirens on, he drove as fast as he could. Rossi was sitting next to him, Reid in the backseat. When Rossi told Morgan they were there, he didn't need more of a signal; he jumped out of the car, his goal to succeed this time. Last time had been _so _close, and he had let her go. He had failed her. He wasn't going to let that happen again.

Hotch pulled up next to Morgan's SUV, and nodded at him. Morgan ran to the door of the cheap house, and kicked it down, screams of "FBI!" echoing around him. The TV was still on, and they could hear muffled screams. _Emily's _screams, Morgan realized and he run blindly to were the sounds were coming from.

He teared a few doors open, and stopped himself at some stairs that were leading down. He now heard the gasps of pain very clearly. He pointed his weapon in front of him as he care fully walked down, knowing JJ was having his back.

Morgan saw Mike Murray beating the shit out of Prentiss, who herself looked like shit. Morgan jumped down the rest of the stairs, JJ following him closely.

"FBI! Hands up where I can see them!" Morgan shouted angrily at Murray.

Murray stopped kicking Emily, and bent down and pulled her up by her hair, who looked like she didn't have a clue where she was. Murray drew a knife from somewhere and held it against Emily's throat.

"Put the knife down!" JJ shouted.

"Oh I don't think so!" Murray screamed back at her, looking completely mental, spit flying around as he spoke, while his hand pushed the blade into Emily's pale skin, making blood ooze down her neck. Thankfully Emily chose to fight back just at that moment, making Murray a clear target. Morgan and JJ fired their guns at the same time and Murray sank down on the floor, as did Emily. They ran over to them, JJ kicked the knife away from Murray, although he had been hit seven times in the chest.

Morgan sank down next to Emily, gently but steadily grabbing her shoulders, but Emily's eyes were wide and they moved without registering anything, and they lingered on Morgan one second in panic, before she began backing away. Morgan held onto her, and Emily decided to throw a punch at him. Thankfully, it was very weak and it didn't hurt at all, Morgan registered, but on second thoughts, that probably wasn't such a good thing.

JJ came to Morgan's help, taking Emily's hands in hers, talking calmly to her, but Emily screamed out once in panic, defeat, and then she cried. Morgan was shocked. He had never, ever seen Emily cry. It was not like to see the strong Prentiss to break down. He knew for sure he never wanted her to have cry again, she looked so defeated. Morgan didn't know what to do, but Emily made the decision easy for him; her body suddenly fell limp, so he lifted her up and placed her in his arms. He was astonished by how light and small she seemed to be. Emily buried her face in his chest and cried on. JJ assumed there was nothing else she could do, so she left them and went to call the paramedics in and inform the rest of the team what had happened.

After a few minutes, the front of Morgan's shirt was completely soaked with tears. He watched Emily silently, stroking her head. Her skin was sickeningly pale and cold, she had cuts and bruises everywhere, her shirt was more like a rag than a shirt, her jeans had been torn, and looked like something youths would wear, except for the fact that they were stained with tried and new blood. One of Emily's hands hung limply by her side, in a weird position, that didn't look natural. Her face was swollen to the point that one of her eyes were completely closed.

Emily had stopped crying by now, and she lay still in Morgan's arms. But suddenly she moved, as if trying to fight something away.

"Shh... it's okay Princess. I'm right here... I'm right here." Morgan said calmly, trying to rub his state of mind onto her. It helped, since Emily made one last dramatic sigh before she fell completely still in his arms, the only proof she was living was a faint pulse, and a steady heaving of her chest.

Before Morgan noticed it, he was surrounded by people. There were paramedics trying to take Emily away from him, and he could see that JJ was back in the room.

"No. I take her." Morgan said to one of the angry paramedics, who began to complain, but Morgan couldn't care less; Emily had calmed down with _him, _therefore he should be with her even when she was unconscious. He was not about to let her go, not now that he had her.

Morgan carefully walked out of the house, holding Emily like porcelain in his arms. He finally let go of her when they reached the ambulance, Rossi holding his hand on Morgan's shoulder, assuring him that the paramedics should be let to do their job when he saw the younger agent's resentment of letting go of Prentiss.

"We gotta take her to the hospital." A nice man in his late thirties informed them the obvious. Rossi nodded at Morgan.

"Go with her."

Morgan shot a thankful glance at Rossi and then jumped in next to Emily, who was being monitored by four paramedics and was fastened to all sorts of machines, looking smaller and more fragile than ever before. But she was finally safe.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Well here's the 'hospital-chapter'. I'm not a doctor, so I don't really know what I'm talking about, but I hope I made it believable. It's really long, and pretty melancholic... I feel like I need to get myself a big steaming cup of tea now!**

** Thank you for reviewing, please review this one too!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds.**

* * *

CHAPTER 12

_'Suddenly I grasped what was happening they were all trying to save me. I never thought I was worth saving.'-Albert Borris, Crash Into Me._

* * *

Emily was very comfortable. She was warm, nothing really hurt anymore and she felt rested. Everything was dark, but she could hear faint whispers and a consistent, dull beeping noise. She tried reaching her hand out, to see if the whisperers had bodies. But her arm felt so heavy and wouldn't move. For unknown reasons, she wanted to reach the whispers, she wanted to be with them. So she started fighting the darkness to reach those whispers.

Morgan was sitting next to JJ, who had fallen asleep against his warm, muscular shoulder. Hotch and Rossi were outside of Emily's room, talking about something, looking very serious. Reid was sitting next to JJ, he asleep as well.

Morgan had arrived to the hospital with Emily, and the rest of the team had arrived a good forty minutes later. They had waited for Emily to undergo surgery; the doctors hadn't told the team anything, except that they must operate on Emily immediately. That left five very antsy BAU members waiting. And of course Garcia, who had insisted they'd call her as soon as they knew something new. When Emily finally, after many hours got out of surgery, she was sedated and the doctors had explained what was going on with her. She was now sleeping on the white bed, the doctors telling the team they could stay with her, but not to wake her up, she needed her rest.

Morgan's eyes snapped shut, but he woke instantly with a start when he heard soft moans. At first he looked over his shoulder at JJ, but she was still sleeping deeply, now leaning on Reid. Morgan looked over at Emily, and saw her eyelids move. She was either dreaming, or waking up. He stood up, and walked quickly over to her side, taking her hand in his.

Emily felt something soft and warm on her hand and she heard a soothing, familiar voice calming her down. Her eyes snapped open and her eyes darted a second without taking in anything, but then she found Morgan, towering over her, not threateningly, though. Her eyes met his and her breathing returned to normal. He smiled at her.

"Hey beautiful. You're awake."

"I see that. But I don't feel specially beautiful right now." Emily said, a bit annoyed.

Morgan smiled once again. She was herself.

"How are you feeling?" He asked her.

Emily thought for a while. Now that she was awake, she didn't feel as peaceful anymore. In fact, everything hurt pretty damned much.

"Fine." She shrugged, but regretted it instantly, since the motion had sent pain searing through her body. Seeing Morgan's look, she quickly continued. "What happened?"

"We found out where O'Connory might be holding you hostage, so we went there. It was some kind of old ware-house. And you were there, but there was another man too and they got away. Garcia identified the guy, his name is Mike Murray by the way, and he owns a house here in Denver, so we went to check it out. And then I found him and you and JJ and I shot him, and now here we are."

Emily nodded. That seemed legitimate enough, although she couldn't remember Morgan nor JJ shooting Murray.

"How long have I been out?"

Morgan glanced down at his wrist.

"Five hours or so after the surgery."

"What did they operate?"

"Well you had a stab-wound in your stomach so they checked that, but it was already healing pretty well. They had to pump out water of your lungs, but they're fine now, you only got fever, which was pretty high, but they got it under control too. Then you had a shot-wound in you arm, the bullet had shattered the bone and it was pretty infected, so they had to stitch it up, and you wrist was broken as well. If I remember correctly, you also got five broken rib bones and you're lucky none of them punctured your lungs. Murray kicked you so much you started bleeding internally. But they fixed that." Morgan took a breather. "But as if _that's _not enough, you've also got a Grade III concussion."

Emily closed her eyes for a brief moment. Now that Morgan mentioned all that, those parts of her body seemed to hurt more. Every time she breathed in and out, her chest was on fire, and deep in her stomach she felt burning, her left arm was the home of pain that would make someone else complain loudly. Emily's head was aching too, making thinking impossible.

"They've given you Morfine so it shouldn't hurt that much." Morgan said, concern in his eyes.

Emily nodded, she would probably be in a lot worse pain if she wasn't drugged.

"Hey you're awake!" JJ's voice brought Emily back to the moment. She smiled weakly at the blonde woman, who had approached Emily's bed, Reid hard on her heels.

"How are you feeling?" JJ asked Emily, concern to be seen in her blue eyes.

"I'm fine." Emily said, not feeling completely at ease with all the attention.

Morgan looked at Emily in silence. He had one question floating around in his mind, and it didn't want to go away as much as he wanted it to. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. When the doctor had informed him about Emily's condition, he hadn't told him anything about sexual assault. Morgan couldn't stand the thought of those men doing _anything _to his Emily. Wait, _his _Emily? Emily wasn't his. Morgan shook his head and looked up just in time to see Rossi and Hotch walk into the room.

"Welcome back, Prentiss." Hotch said to Emily, a little smile playing on his lips. "It's good to have you back."

"It's good to be back, sir." Emily nodded back at him.

"Do any of you need coffee?" Rossi asked the lot, and when he was met with five yes', he left (after he had shot a warning glance at Prentiss. Only because she was awake now didn't mean she needed coffee).

"So what happened with the Unsubs again? I don't think Morgan told me what happened with O'Connory." Emily asked the team, unaware of the awkward situation she had created. Hotch stiffened, Reid's eyes darted everywhere but Emily, and JJ bit her lip. Morgan noticed this though. It was weird, the rest of the team hadn't told him what had happened with O'Connory, and he had been too busy to ask.

"When we entered, Morgan and JJ rushed to get you." Hotch started slowly, carefully placing his words. "Rossi, Reid and myself went to find O'Connory. But we couldn't find him anywhere. So Rossi joined Morgan and helped him get you to the ambulance while Reid and me double-checked the whole house."

"Then I heard two shots and screaming." Reid continued. "We ran downstairs, and saw that two police-men were down. O'Connory fled with his car. The police-men chasing him didn't catch him."

Emily stared at Reid, then Hotch, and then Reid again, trying to process this new information. They didn't catch O'Connory. He was still out there.

"We lost one of the police-men on the scene, the other on the way to the hospital." Hotch said.

Emily was at loss. Just as she thought she was safe, they told her this. At first, she felt like telling them all to leave her alone, she couldn't stand their guilty postures, but now as she saw their apologetic looks, that they were as sad, angry and confused as she was, she couldn't do that. They were on her side, they were here for her.

So instead of throwing a temper, she only nodded, taking a deep breath, cutting her feelings off as she had done countless times before, building up those invisible walls around her again, the ones she so foolishly had let down. Suddenly there was a light pressure on her shoulder, and when she looked up she saw Morgan was holding his hand comfortingly on her shoulder, and quite frankly, she was glad he was there. It felt like he at least was sharing her feelings, understanding her. The rest of the team could cheer her up, could look apologetic, but they couldn't fix her. Morgan always had this deeper bond with her, the lines of friendship sometimes getting blurry, but they always managed to be professional. Right now she wanted something, just something that would tell her she still was human, that she still was a woman, the woman she had been before all of this.

The two next days passed uneventfully, Emily had to stay in bed in the hospital (even though she complained about it whenever she had the chance, telling everyone she was completely able to help the team with their searches for O'Connory). Morgan had stayed with Emily, not even leaving to get some sleep, or eat. He slept on the uncomfortable chair next to her, and JJ or Reid always brought him food when they visited. At first, the doctors had been resentful of the idea of Emily moving around, but on the third day she persuaded them to give her a wheelchair at least, that would reduce the amount of movement of her ribs a bit, since broken ribs are one of the toughest bones to heal, but after a day, Emily did not allow herself being pushed around in a wheelchair anymore, so she was walking, very slowly indeed, but walking, even though the doctors' loud complaining.

Her hand was in a cast, she had fresh bandage around her lower torso, but her head wasn't any better though. But Emily knew a concussion took time to heal, and a Grade III concussion would take three times longer to heal than a Grade I. Even with everything going on with her, she couldn't get her mind off of O'Connory. He was still out there somewhere, waiting, waiting for her, Emily knew it. She couldn't sleep more than one hour a time, before waking up, covered in cold-sweat, chest heaving painfully. She had nightmares. It had been a long time since she had nightmares like this. They were all the same, about O'Connory or Murray. Morgan often had to shake her awake when he woke up to her screaming. She was thankful he had told her he wouldn't mention it to the other team-members. She didn't need them to be even more careful around her. It was annoying enough as it was.

Morgan, JJ, Reid, Rossi and Hotch noticed a change in Emily's behavior, hell, they hadn't exactly been expecting her to behave normal after everything she had gone through, but it didn't stop them from missing the old Emily. They couldn't make her smile a real smile, not even the amount of chess Reid played with her could cheer her up, not JJ trying to talk girl-talk with her, nor Rossi throwing around jokes, not even Morgan could make her smile.

Emily could act normal, could plaster a smile on her face when she saw one of her team-members approach, she could laugh, but none of this really reached her eyes, which remained, empty, sad and filled with pain. It killed the others to look into her once warm, brown eyes, to now see that there was nothing familiar left in them.

At the end, Morgan couldn't take it anymore. He had been visiting Emily, and was now walking out of her room. She had been watching TV, not really looking at what she was watching, but just staring, occasionally throwing a fake-smile at Morgan when he said something, but other than that she hadn't changed facial-expression. Morgan had to get out of there, to get a breather. He leaned against the cold, white wall opposite to Emily's room, eyes closed, gathering himself.

"Are you alright?" JJ had walked up to him without him noticing.

Morgan quickly opened his eyes and smiled. "Yeah, I'm fine."

JJ looked sceptically at him. She could see through his lie.

"Okay, I need you to talk to Emily for me."

JJ scrunched her eyebrows. "What do you want me to say?"

"She'll be released today if she wants to, and I know she will, and I need to know... I need to know if those scumbags O'Connory and Murray, if they..." He shot a meaningful stare at JJ, he knew she would understand him. He just couldn't say it out loud.

JJ nodded. She knew he was going to ask her to ask Emily eventually. She patted his shoulder and opened the door to Emily's room. She found her lying on her bed, staring at the wall opposite to her, exactly like Morgan had left her. JJ pulled a chair up next to her head. Emily looked over at her just for a second, smiled, then lied back onto her pillow.

"How are you feeling?" JJ asked the other agent.

"Better than yesterday." Emily said simply.

JJ nodded. She was going to have to put this the right way.

"You know you can tell me anything?"

"Thanks Jayje." Emily didn't look up.

"You would tell me if there was something bogging you, wouldn't you?"

Emily finally looked up at her. JJ had to stop herself from hugging Emily. It wouldn't be good for her ribs, but the way Emily looked so battered, tired, a shell of herself, JJ felt her heart bleed for the other woman. It was horrible how much Emily reminded her of previous victims JJ had visited. But JJ knew Emily would not approve of her thinking like this, so she started talking.

"Look, the doctors informed us about your wounds a few days ago." JJ started.

"I know that." Emily said, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion. _Where was JJ going with this? _"Is there something I'm unaware of?"

"Oh, no! Nothing. But I was going to ask you. Do you remember anything what happened when you were with O'Connory and Murray?" JJ gently pressed the matter.

"Everything except the moments before you guys found me." Emily answered flatly. She now knew what JJ wanted to ask her, but she didn't feel like helping her out.

"So, uh, did they... did they...?" It was JJ's turn not to make herself say it out loud. Emily, still not feeling cooperative, only stared at JJ, a fake confused look on her face. JJ knew Emily knew perfectly fine what she wanted to say and was starting to feel a bit annoyed. Emily may have been held captive and tortured for five days or so, but she was never stupid, and that didn't make her stupid. But JJ only took a deep breath, gathered herself like she always did when she had to hold a press-conference. She couldn't afford to make Emily stop talking now when she finally was having a close to normal conversation.

"Did they rape you?" JJ whispered, as if it would make her question less loaded.

Emily couldn't help feeling uneasy. She swallowed and looked down at her left fist, which was curled to a ball, squeezing her sheets.

When she finally looked up, JJ's eyes were already watering up. She was biting her lip, on the verge of tears. Just as Emily was about to answer her, JJ threw herself on Emily, crying. Emily let out a screech of pain. JJ had pressed on her rib bones, making them move, which still hurt.

"I'm so sorry Em...!" JJ gulped out between sobs.

"What happened!?" Morgan stormed in, looking around. "Are you okay Prentiss?"

"I'm fine!" Emily said annoyed, catching her breath.

"Can you excuse us Morgan?" JJ asked him, looking meaningfully at him. Morgan nodded at her and shot a short glance at Emily before closing the door behind him.

"No they did not."

JJ breathed out in relief. But then a thought stuck her; what if they had drugged Emily and she only couldn't remember it? Emily noticed JJ was thinking about something, and she knew what.

"JJ stop it." JJ looked up in shock.

"Wh-what?"

"I asked the doctors. They confirmed my suspicions."

JJ nodded and looked ashamed down at her hands. Of course Emily had asked the doctors to check. She was a FBI agent after all. She knew what she had to do.

"I'm sorry."

"What?" JJ jumped. "What are you talking about?"

"I shouldn't have snapped at you." Emily shook her head regretfully. "I know you're all just trying to help... it's just... pretty hard, you know? Knowing that I have to be here doing nothing while you try to catch him."

JJ took her friends bandaged hand in hers and caressed it lightly, showing her support. She wasn't going to reveal to Emily that in fact, they had no idea where O'Connory was. So she thought of something else to say. She couldn't say 'I know.' since she didn't know what it felt to go through what Emily was going through.

Instead, she said. "We're all here for you."

Just then Emily's doctor, a friendly middle-aged man walked into the room, some papers in his hand. He looked up and smiled at the two women, who quickly let go of the others hand. Morgan walked in after him, one eyebrow quirked as only he could, making his eyebrows look like two horizontal S. He smiled when he saw the two women quickly separate.

"We should have waited a bit longer, Doctor." Morgan said, a playful glint in his eyes. "They were just getting started..."

"Morgan!" Emily and JJ said at the same time.

The doctor only smiled and looked down at his papers.

"Well Agent Prentiss, you're free to leave, if you want to. I would personally recommend you stay here a day or two so we can be sure nothing's wrong-"

"I'm leaving!" Emily cut him off, earning unappreciative glances from both JJ and Morgan. "What, I'm completely fine." She shrugged at them, but whimpered as her ribs moved.

The doctor looked at her, trying to stare her to stay, but he failed so he handed her the papers.

"Then you have to fill in these papers and you're free to leave. I would still recommend-"

"Thank you Doctor." Emily dismissed him.

Fifteen minutes later Morgan wheeled a very grumpy Emily out of the hospital (she insisted she could walk, but the doctor had told her that if she didn't sit down in that damned chair, he'd make her stay three more days). JJ drove the car to the entrance of the hospital and Emily climbed clumsily in in the passenger's seat and Morgan sat down behind them. Emily let out a relieved breath. She was finally out of that hospital, with its sterilized smell and nosy nurses who wanted to get a look at the 'abducted & tortured FBI agent'.

She would focus all her energy on finding O'Connory and put him behind bars if that so was the last thing she did. She felt like she owed all his previous victims that, at least. She got out alive, while they didn't stand a chance. She owed them.

* * *

**A/N 2: Oh and I really had a hard time deciding if Emily was raped or not... but I felt like she didn't need that on top of everything, I hope you agree:)**

**Please revieeeewwww!  
**


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: Sorry it took me a little bit longer to update, but I was sick for a few days and didn't feel like writing... But yeah, here you finally have chapter 13! It's a bit more like a filler-chapter, most team-scentric since I felt we hadn't had that in a while... Thank you to the reviewevers, I appreciate it very much!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds or it's characters, I'm only borrowing them;)**

* * *

CHAPTER 13

_'It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.'- Rose Kennedy_

* * *

The ride from the hospital to the police-station was rather short, thanks to Morgan's driving, but it did earn them some honks from other cars. When Morgan pulled over in front of the station, there were dozens of reporters waiting with their recording devices or camera men to be seen. They began screaming when they saw the car, and making their way towards it. Emily was positive she could hear her name being shouted out.

"Change of plans." Morgan said quickly stomped on the pedal, making the car jolt forwards, leaving the greedy reporters behind.

"How did they know I was in the car?" Emily asked the other two. "Why did they want to speak to me?"

"It's possible that what happened to you could have been leaked somehow." JJ thought and shrugged.

"Well I'm not speaking to them." Emily said almost angrily, leaving no room for arguments if there were any.

Morgan had to mentally slap himself for starting profiling Emily. They weren't supposed to profile each other, it was a rule that didn't need to be said out loud, everybody knew it. But sometimes they couldn't stop themselves from doing it, and this was one of those moments. Morgan was curious about why Emily had said _them _so resentfully. No one of the team liked reporters, but they didn't have anything against them personally, they only didn't like them because they could interfere with their work, but most of the time they also were a weapon against the Unsubs. Emily seemed to dislike them for completely different reasons.

Morgan drove a few minutes around with no goal, before driving another way to the police-station. But even at the back-door, they were surrounded by reporters screaming questions, not about the case specifically, but about Emily. Morgan drove away again, looking pissed.

"Hotch?" JJ's voice sounded from behind them.

"Yes?" Hotch's voice could be heard.

"Yeah this is JJ, you're on speaker. We can't get past the reporters at the station."

"It doesn't matter, we're leaving anyways." That made the three agents look at each others inquisitively.

"Why?" Morgan asked.

"Garcia found a security-footage of O'Connory in Virginia." Hotch's words were heavy, filled with loathing towards O'Connory.

"In Virginia? What's he doing there?" Emily asked him, her voice quivering only a bit, but she looked determined.

"We don't know yet, he was only buying some food."

"So we're going back home then?" Morgan asked.

"Yes. Meet us at the airport in thirty." Hotch told them.

* * *

The team boarded their privet plane, the air filled with anticipation to get back home, but then there was this burdensome, dreading feeling on Emily's part, to find out why exactly Sean O'Connory was lurking on their territory. Everyone had their own guesses why, but none of them really wanted or saw the need to express them out loud.

Emily sat down next to Rossi, the one person on the team she truly didn't feel judged with. Rossi was also the only one who's behavior hadn't changed since they'd found her. He wasn't tiptoeing around her at all, which Emily was thankful for. Morgan and Reid sat down in front of them, and JJ on the other side of the isle while Hotch walked down to the back of the plane, probably trying to get as much work done without the rest of the team disturbing him.

Rossi handed everyone some of his mouth-fresheners he always bore with him. Reid took a handful, but no one commented, since they knew he wasn't entirely confident with flight departures nor with the landings. Emily guessed it was the statistics his brain was over-flooding with, weren't always in his favor. She wouldn't want to know how high the chances of some sort of accident happening was whenever she was doing something.

"Did you know that only one in five million air-crafts crash?" Reid asked them, unable to contain himself.

"Do you rather wanna drive?" Morgan asked him jokingly. "Cause I swear, I'll get you a car!"

"No, I don't. The risk of having an accident with a car is 22 times higher than with a plane. Actually-"

"Shut up!" Morgan, JJ and Emily exclaimed at the same time.

Reid opened his mouth to argue, but luckily the plane started it's departure at exactly that moment, making it impossible to hear what he was trying to say over the roar of the engines.

* * *

Four hours later, the plane landed, waking the sleeping JJ with a start and ending the game of chess Reid was trying to beat Prentiss at (and failing). Morgan finally took off his giant headphones and Rossi put his book away. They hadn't done much work (except for Hotch), since there wasn't exactly much to do. They knew who the Unsub was and looked like, they had almost got him, so the only thing they needed to do now was catch him.

Garcia met them at the airport, waving her red bag and running towards them, shrieking and earning some curious looks from other travelers, and unappreciative ones from her team. But she was Garcia, and Garcia couldn't care less if she embarrassed her team. She was the Goddess of All Knowledge after all. She ran straight to Emily and almost knocked her over since Emily was still feeling a little bit weak standing up.

"Oh my little kitten how are you feeling? I was so worried!" Garcia asked almost crying.

"C'mon Garcia you're strangling her." Morgan gently pulled Garcia away from Emily, who was trying to catch her breath from Garcia's sudden embrace, massaging her ribcage.

"Oh my God I'm so sorry! I totally forgot you're ribs were broken!" Garcia put her hands in front of her mouth, a look of horror splashed on her face.

"I'm fine." Emily said and smiled. Garcia let out a breath and bounced up and down like a child on Christmas morning.

"Well then let us by some coffee! I reckon you're all hungry after a long flight like yours so I, as clever as always, reserved a table at a very cute cafe! Don't worry Rossi, they've got good food." She added when she saw the look on Rossi's face at the thought of going to one of Garcia's food-places.

The team looked at Hotch, waiting for him to deny. But to everyone's surprise, he smiled and nodded at Garcia, who let out a delighted screech and locked arms with Morgan and dragged him away.

Garcia had actually brought them to a rather cozy place. There weren't many people and the service was good, as was the food. Emily ate her food like she hadn't seen food in many days (which was true; the hospital food couldn't be classified as food). Her spaghetti Bolognese was eaten in seconds, which made Garcia really happy and exited, so she ordered even more for Emily. Morgan was content with his burger and fries, Reid as well with his chicken-sandwich and Hotch seemed to like his coffee. Even Rossi complimented the food, saying it was almost as good as the one he cooked, which was very generous of him indeed.

They talked smalltalk, not about work, which was a nice change. But that was probably thanks to Garcia, who shouted "Ha!" loudly as soon as someone said something work-related. It was nice having her there, Emily noticed. There was always some sort of hollow feeling when they were on a case and the only communication they had with Garcia was through their phones and computers. She was like the heart of the team, the one making it work and keeping it grounded. Emily shuddered at the thought of having to work a case without Garcia.

But, as all the good things, their brake ended too soon. Hotch answered a phone call, and returned with the news that an angry Strauss waited for them back at the headquarters, wondering why the hell her Behavior Analysis Unit hadn't arrived yet. The team thanked the waitress and jumped into their cars and began driving back to Quantico.

* * *

Emily felt glad to finally be back home. The bullpen looked exactly like it had looked when they had left, and it was nice to see that some things never change. The agents working there suddenly stopped and looked up at the team walking in. Only they weren't looking at the team, they were looking at Emily. Hushed whispers followed her as she sat down by her desk, followed by Morgan and Reid. Emily tried to act like she didn't notice the people staring at her, but she couldn't help feeling a bit annoyed. How on earth did they already know what had happened, and how much did they know?

"Prentiss." A voice brought Emily to reality. She looked up and saw Hotch standing in the doorway of his office. "Can I have a word?"

Emily stood up and walked to Hotch's office without looking anyone in the eye. But she sure felt everyone's eyes on her as she made her way.

"What can I do for you Sir?" She asked Hotch as she closed the door behind her.

"Sit down, please." He motioned towards the chair in front of his desk.

Emily sat down and looked him steadily in the eye. She knew he would have wanted a word with her.

"As you know, based on the events up in Denver, you will have to be momentarily suspended."

"What!?" Emily couldn't help herself.

"It's only temporarily, until you pass the psychiatrist's evaluation." Hotch continued calmly, visibly not disturbed by Emily's temper.

"Are you serious?" Emily gaped at him.

"Yes I am. I have to be sure that what happened to you won't affect your work." Hotch looked her straight in the eyes, daring her to disagree.

Emily swallowed. She didn't want to make Hotch angry, but she had always had a certain difficulty with authority.

"Well then." She settled with and stood up. "If that's all..."

"Look Prentiss I'm sorry, I doubt it would interfere with your work, but it's nothing I can affect." Hotch told her apolitically.

Emily only nodded and stormed out.

"What's up with her?" Morgan silently asked Reid when they saw an angry Prentiss stride towards them.

She started emptying her desk, taking only the important things with her, but Reid and Morgan noticed she left her gun and badge.

"She quit!?" Reid whispered, scared.

"Let's find out!" Morgan stood up and quickly walked up to Emily as she walked towards the elevators.

"What's up, Em?" He asked her, slightly out of breath.

She didn't look at him, only stared at the elevator-doors. Her posture was upright and stiff.

"Prentiss?"

"What!?" She snapped.

Morgan threw his hands in the air as he usually did when he felt attacked.

"Tell me." He said.

"He suspended me." She said, less angry now, and more defeated.

"But you had to see that coming, I mean you know we always have to get cleared for field work after-"

"I know, Morgan!" She said and walked into the elevator. Morgan walked in after her, not sure if he wanted to be in a small, enclosed space, alone with an angry Prentiss.

"It'll only take a few weeks." He tried to soothe her.

"I know..." She seemed to deflate, her heights diminishing as her posture relaxed more, making her look more pathetic than she already did, with her bruises and casts.. "But I wanted to work and catch him."

She was talking about O'Connory. Morgan understood her, it would be hard to have to do nothing but wait until the man who hurt you got behind bars, not being able to help catch him.

"And now I'll only have time to dwell about it." She rolled her eyes at herself.

"I'm here for you, you know that, right?" Morgan patted her shoulder. Emily looked over at him and smiled a genuine smile.

"I know." The elevator pinged and the doors opened. Morgan followed her out.

"And you can stop escorting me now. I think I can make it to my car alone, thank you so much." She said, a flash of her old self washing over her.

"Oh so miss I-can-take-care-of-myself tells Derek Morgan to leave. Well I don't think so!" He hit her gently in the back. Emily laughed. Morgan's heart jumped up and down in glee. He had missed her laugh. But too soon Emily went back to the reserved, contained Emily she had been ever since she waked up in the hospital.

Morgan decided that he would not leave her side until that O'Connory-guy was caught, and not until she was back to herself. He wanted to protect her and make her happy. He wished that these thoughts and feelings were normal to have towards a co-worker. But they were, right? He would feel like this about Garcia and JJ too if they were in Emily's position. Or would he?

* * *

**Please review!:))) **

**PS. Barbra4317 you're gonna get your Father-daughter Emily-Rossi scene most likely in the next chapter!;)**


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: A very quick update! Thank you for reviewing the last chapter, thank you thank you!:) Hope you like this one too!**

**And please review, I'd love to hear what you think about the story, good and bad (but not too bad;)), so I can try to evolve and take your wishes and advises into consideration. You can also tell me if you have something in mind for the story, something you'd want to happen, pairings etc.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing, except the storyline...**

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CHAPTER 14

_'What if deja vu meant you lost a life and you are starting back off at your last checkpoint.'- Unknown_

* * *

Emily had not been working for a week, and she was starting to lose it. For normal people, a week without work would almost be considered heaven, but for Emily Prentiss it was hell. Her therapy-sessions went well, and she saw no point in continuing with them. Four times a week she was forced to meet up with her therapist, Doctor Mallard. He was the FBI's therapist, so he was an expert on dealing with traumas delivered by an Unsub. But Emily got easily annoyed with his questions, and felt like she had better things to do than to sit in a room with someone who was trying to find some sort of weaknesses in her. But when she had gone to meet Hotch (on the third day), asking him to let her work again, he had told her to not enter the building, otherwise he would make her stay even longer away, so Emily had no choice. She played it tough when she met Dr. Mallard, but he often saw through her, well, that was what he was trained to do, and Emily slowly realized seeing him wasn't all bad.

Dr. Mallard helped her with her nightmares, which seemed to return every time Emily closed her eyes. JJ and Garcia would often stop by when they had time, but there was no one who helped her more than Morgan. He had even began next to living in her flat. He couldn't be there with her all the time, but when he wasn't working, he was there. At nights, he would go sleep on the couch, but soon be waked by Emily, having a nightmare. When that happened he would run up to her room, and climb in her bed with her, stroking her hair, whispering that everything was going to be alright in her ear, until she would sleep peacefully again. They often found themselves tangled together when they woke up, and it would follow with some awkward apologies, but everything was soon back to normal between them, and the next night, they would do it again.

The wounds on her body started healing, the bruises were almost all gone, and those that hadn't yet were already a shade of yellow, meaning they'd fade away soon. Emily's ribs didn't hurt as much anymore, but they were broken nonetheless, same with her arm and wrist, which were still in casts, but those were the only big reminders of what had gone wrong up in Denver.

Emily slowly returned to the old Emily, funny, outgoing and smart, but there were times when she was to be found sitting somewhere, chewing her short nails, staring off into the distance. It was sad to see her like that, and the team only felt worse for not being able to at least tell her they were progressing with the O'Connor y-case, but it was like he had been wiped off of the ground. Garcia had not been able to finds any new activity on him, nobody had seen him and the 'wanted' status she had put up on his id hadn't helped the tiniest bit. For once the BAU felt helpless. On the second Monday since they were back in Quantico, something happened though.

* * *

Emily was in her favorite coffee-shop, waiting in the line to buy her coffee and a muffin. The door opened and someone walked in. But Emily didn't pay it much attention to that, why would she? The person positioned himself behind her, looking at the cakes displayed in the showcase next to them. The buxom woman in front of Emily moved forwards to buy her carrot-cake for her children's birthday, as she loudly told the cashier.

Emily moved forwards as well, but when she stopped someone bumped into her. She spilled her coffee all over her white blouse, the hot liquid burning her skin.

"Ouch!"

"Oh excuse me ma'am!"

Emily turned around with a bile in her throat; she recognized that voice, but it couldn't be...

A man stood behind her, looking apologetic, concern in his brown eyes, which contrasted against his blonde hair.

"It's fine." Emily smiled at him, still looking like she had seen a ghost. It wasn't who she had feared it was, but there was still something off with this man either way, and he seemed oddly familiar...

"Really? You look kinda pale." The man asked.

"Yeah yeah, I'm fine, I just need to change shirt." Emily said and moved her hand in a gesture that pointed out her coffee-stained shirt.

"Oh gosh I'm so sorry! Here, let me buy you a new coffee at least before you go!" He moved to a free cashier and ordered.

"Two coffees, one black and the other with cream and two cubes of sugar."

"Thank you." Emily accepted the cup he handed her. She furrowed her brows. This was strange.

"How did you know I take my coffee with cream and two sugar-cubes?"

"Oh..." The man looked awkward for a moment, clearly thinking hard. "I just had a feeling." He settled with and smiled charmingly at Emily.

"Well thank you, but I should really go now." She smiled and shrugged her shoulders in what she hoped was an apologetic gesture, and started moving towards the door. This man was giving her a strange feeling and she wanted away from him as quickly as possible.

"Hey wait up!" _Damn__. _He wasn't letting her go.

Emily turned around and saw the strange man quickly making his way towards her. She could have pretended not to hear him, but it was such a small shop, it wouldn't have been believable. But why did she care? It wasn't like she knew him and she was probably never going to see him again.

"Yes?"

"I- I-just-thought-maybe-we-could-meet-again?" The man said without breathing and he licked his lips nervously.

"Excuse me?"

"I wondered if you'd like to meet again sometime?" He said slower and smiled a charming smiled, showing off all his perfect, in line, white teeth.

"Um..." Emily didn't know what to say. "I have a boyfriend!" She finally blurted out.

"Somehow that doesn't sound believable." He laughed and Emily let out a nervous laugh too. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry." She almost felt sorry, he looked so nervous and she felt bad letting him down.

"Well then. Maybe we meet again!" The man said optimistically.

"Bye!" Emily waved and quickly made her way back to her apartment.

Finally safe in her apartment, behind her door and several locks and other security-systems, Emily let herself breathe. That man in the coffee-shop had somehow had a weird effect on her. Her heart had pounded really fast when she had heard him speak, threatening to break her ribs (again), her mouth had become dry and she couldn't figure out why. She had never seen this guy before, but she kept thinking she had. He seemed so familiar... if he only had dark hair and blue eyes, her would have been an exact replica of Sean O'Connory. Emily shuddered at the thought and threw her coffee away, and started brewing some of her own.

This was silly, she was acting like a scared chicken. And she was no chicken, oh no, Emily Prentiss was far from being like that. She was a trained FBI-Agent, more precisely a Supervisory Special Agent. And Supervisory Special Agents didn't run home heart in their throat after seeing someone they thought had hurt them once in a coffee-shop. No, she had to stop acting like this, Emily mentally kicked herself in the ass. Get a grip, her inner voice told her, and Emily could picture it smirking at her, if headless voices inside your own head could smirk.

Emily was suddenly waked up from her reveries as she noticed the coffee was done. She poured it into a mug and added some milk. Almost as good as the one they served in the coffee-shop, she thought and sat down on her couch.

This was the first time she encountered the strange blonde man, but surely not the last. One time she met him when she was grocery-shopping and he creeped her out as much this time as the first time she had seen him. Another time he was walking towards her on the street, and when Emily saw him, she turned abruptly around a walked quickly the other way, hoping he hadn't seen her.

* * *

It wasn't until a week later, that something else happened. Emily was about to drive to the BAU, to ask Hotch if she could finally come back. She knew DR. Mallard hadn't given her clearance yet, but maybe Hotch could speed things up a bit, it had been close two weeks (and a half) since they had come back from Denver, and Emily was getting antsy.

Her phone buzzed as she sat down in her car. She reached over and saw that an unknown number called her. This wasn't alarming though, many unknown numbers called her due to her job.

"Prentiss." She answered.

"Hello Emily." Emily's forehead creased as she tried putting a face to the voice.

"Uh I'm sorry who did you say you are?"

"Oh but I didn't." The voice was sleazy, lazy and cold. Emily could have sworn she had heard it before, her body agreeing with her as she got goosebumps.

"I think you've got the wrong number sir." Emily said and was about to end the call, but somehow she couldn't really make herself do it, so she hold on.

"Yeah, I thought so..." The uncanny voice said slowly after a beat. "You can't hang up on me, can you?"

"I can and I will if you don't tell me who you are right now." Emily said angrily.

"Shh shh agent Prentiss." The voice said soothingly. "I just wanted to hear your voice again... it was a while since I heard it..."

"I'm hanging up now!"

"Well goodbye then, Emily Prentiss... I'll call you again... I want my revenge."

And with that it was over. Emily stared at her phone, not believing what had just happened. It wasn't until a car honked at her to move, the light was green already. Emily drove silently all the way to Quantico, her head buzzing with thoughts. But when she stepped out of her car, she had only one thought in mind; and that was not to tell the team about the mysterious phone-call. It could just have been some lunatic... _but a lunatic who knew your full name... _the annoying voice inside her head said.


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: Another super-quick update, since I won't be able to update at all until Monday:( But a BIG thank you to those of you who have reviewed, we passed 50! Woo! Hope you review this one as well, I'd like to know what you think of it. And know that I have read every single one review, even though I haven't answered (since I'm not sure how to do it, should I press site preview or send message...?).**

**Disclaimer: I do not own, nada**

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CHAPTER 15

_'All things are difficult before they are easy.'- Thomas Fuller_

* * *

Hotch had brushed her off. Again. Emily was still feeling frustrated with her boss the next day as she pursed her lips together, driving to her therapy-session. This was completely and utterly unnecessary. She parked her car pretty badly but she didn't care. She wanted to get this meeting over with. When she had seen him he had seemed very busy, nothing unusual, and when she had entered his office he had seemed almost annoyed. When she met the other members of the team, she held it short and didn't talk about the unnerving phone-call.

Emily rode the elevator up to the fifth floor along with some men dressed in business-suits, who got off on the fourth floor. Emily was instantly taken in to Dr. Mallard's office by his secretary who was friendly, almost too friendly.

Dr. Mallard's office was the perfect example of a therapist's office, like the ones you would see in movies. He had a desk and a computer in one end of the room, and in the other he had a black leather couch and an armchair in which Emily found him sitting on, reading something, probably notes he had taken on a patient. He looked up as she entered and smiled, taking off his reading-glasses.

"Hello Emily." His voice was calm and friendly, which Emily hated and liked at the same time. "Just on time. As always."

"Dr. Mallard."

"Sit down." He gestured towards the couch.

Emily dropped her bag as she heavily sat down. Dr. Mallard watched her closely, one eye smaller than the other, Emily couldn't help but noticing. Just as she was getting uneasy he spoke.

"Something's troubling you." He stated, it wasn't a question, it was a statement in which he demanded her to explain why.

Emily was momentarily taken aback. How was it possible he knew about the phone-call? Was he bugging her phone? Or did he perhaps know about the weird man who was creeping her out. But then she realized, he didn't know about any of that. He was only sensing her irritation towards her boss.

"I saw my boss yesterday." She said.

"Ah Aaron Hotchner. He is a nice man." Dr. Mallard nodded. Emily stopped herself just in time to say something witty at him.

"Yes he is a good boss. But he won't still let me come back to work, and it's been three weeks already." She sighed. "I don't see what could possibly 'affect my work'."

"You still have nightmares." Dr. Mallard pointed out, studying her closely.

"My nightmares are getting better, if anything they're almost gone." It was true, she only woke up ones per night.

"Well you are right." Emily's heart jumped. "I don't see what could 'affect your work' anymore." Dr. Mallard said. "I suggest you shouldn't be angry at your boss, he cannot affect the situation much before I give my permission. And you have been at every meeting for the past three weeks, never been late."

"So, this will be our final meeting, I hope." He paused. "Is there anything special you would like to address?" He looked expectantly up and met Emily's chocolate-brown eyes. She had to look away from his gaze, it was like he could see right through her, and knew what she was thinking about.

Emily thought about the weird encounter at the coffee-shop, all the weird sightings of the same man, and finally the phone-call, which had ended rather unnervingly.

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. It has been good to know you, Dr. Mallard, but I am ready to go back to work."

"Okay then." He closed his note-pad and stood up, Emily following his example.

"Bye bye Emily. Hope not to see you again." Dr. Mallard joked and they shook hands.

"Agent Prentiss." Emily answered her phone as she walked out of Dr. Mallards office five minutes later.

"Did you have a good session?"

Emily instantly froze. It was _him _again. That voice.

"What. Do. You. Want?" She asked clearly.

"What I want... I want you agent Prentiss."

Emily swallowed.

"And I'm going to. Soon. But not quite yet. I just wanted to call and ask how you are doing... without your job."

"I have a job! For a matter of a fact, I'm going there right now!" She said angrily.

"No you're not. You're standing in front of Dr. Mallards office."

Emily looked around. Could he see her? But there was no one except for Dr. Mallard's secretary to be seen.

"Look stop calling me right now. Or I will tell the police." Emily said and felt a bit childish.

"But _you _are the police, aren't you? And anyways, I'm not scared of the police. You didn't catch me the first time, so why would you now?"

So it _was _Sean O'Connory. That explained why the voice creeped her out as much as it did. Emily tore her phone away from her ear, and ended the call. Dr. Mallard's receptionist stared at her like she had grown a pair of extra heads. A door suddenly opened behind Emily. She swirled around and found herself face to face with Dr. Mallard himself, who looked pretty shocked.

"I thought you hated being here?" His eyebrows rose.

"Yeah.. I- um... I was just leaving." Emily smiled at him and almost ran to the elevators, feeling both his and his receptionist's stares on her.

* * *

Twenty minutes later Emily walked into the BAU bullpen. She saw Morgan and Reid, both sitting at their respective desks, working hard, totally consumed doing whatever they were doing, probably finishing some reports on a case. Emily sneaked past them and walked down a corridor towards everyone's favorite tech-lady.

"Enter from the mortal world!" Garcia said and Emily entered.

"He Pen!" Emily said and approached the tech-Goddess who was sitting in the far end of the room, surveying her babies (computers as normal people would call them).

"Em!" Garcia bounced up at the sound of her friend's voice. "I wasn't expecting you! How are you!?" Garcia was just as energetic as always.

"Actually, I'm here on business." Emily held her away before she could crush her now almost healed rib bones.

"What can I do for ya my favorite kick-ass agent?" Garcia sat down in front of one of her computers, fingers itching to begin typing.

Emily held her phone towards her. "I need you to trace the last call I received and one I got on the 19th around 2pm. Can you do it?"

"Are you doubting me?" Garcia looked sceptically at her whilst accepting the phone. "I think you need to come up here more often."

When she saw the look on Emily's face, she quickly faced her computer again. "Just give me a minute."

"A minute? I thought you of all people could do better." Emily teased Garcia, knowing this would annoy her.

"Fifty-five seconds then." Garcia challenged herself, furiously typing away.

After while (fifty-three seconds later, to be precise, yes, Emily counted), Garcia looked up.

"I'm sorry hun, I can't trace it."

"You sure?"

"I wouldn't lie about failure, it stings bad as it is." Garcia said.

"OK, well thank you anyways Pen." Emily tapped her on the shoulder and took her phone and walked out.

"See you later!"

Emily walked across the bullpen, hoping Morgan and Reid wouldn't notice her. Just as she reached the doors, a voice stopped her.

"Prentiss!" But it was neither Morgan's nor Reid's voice, it was Hotch's.

Emily turned around and saw her boss standing in the doorway of his office. When he saw she saw him, he returned in it. But Morgan and Reid had heard him, which was inevitable since Hotch's voice could be heard miles away if he wanted, and they were now looking questionably at her, wondering why she hadn't said hello to them.

"What are you doing here?" Reid asked Emily. She hadn't been there for a few days, well they hadn't been at the office yesterday, but somewhere questioning the families of a victim of the case they were working on whilst waiting on leads on the O'Connory-case. Strauss was not letting them off the hook even with O'Connory still on the loose.

"I was just-"

"Now, Prentiss!" Hotch's head was looking angrily past his door.

"Yes, Sir!" She hurried towards him, ignoring the looks Morgan and Reid gave her.

"Mighty fine ass there, right Spence?" Morgan elbowed Reid as Emily walked past them, making Reid blush.

"Morgan, eyes off it!" Emily said, without looking at Morgan or Reid, before entering Hotch's office.

"How did she know?" Morgan asked the younger agent, stunned.

Reid didn't find any words, and he was already blushing so hard he didn't want Morgan to notice, so he only shrugged and went back to his papers. Morgan stared amazed at where Emily had disappeared for a few beats, before shaking his head and returning to the boring papers in front of him too. He should hurry if he wanted home at all tonight.

* * *

"Yes, Sir?"

"Sit." Hotch said and Emily obeyed, wondering what she had done now.

"I thought I had made it clear I didn't want to see you here before Dr. Mallard informed me you were clear?"

"Uh... I actually had some business to do."

One Hotch's eyebrows shot up, but didn't question her any further on that.

"Well you're lucky, I just got his report on how you were progressing, and he says you're free to return if you wanted to."

"Of course I want!" Emily felt offended Hotch even dared to think she didn't want to come back. At that Emily could have sworn the corners of Hotch's mouth turned upwards, but only for a second.

"I thought so. He has given you full points." He looked at her, slightly amused.

Emily didn't know what to do so she nodded.

"Welcome back."

"Thank you, sir."

* * *

"What was all that about? Why do you seem so pleased?" Morgan asked Emily as soon as she had closed Hotch's office-door.

"Whoa calm down there!" Emily laughed at him. "I'm back!" She said after a moment's silence.

"You are?" Reid asked. "Congratulations!"

"Thank you." Emily smiled. "It's good to be back. I've had too much time on my own!"

"Uh, Em, could I ask you something?" Morgan asked Emily, who furrowed her brows at the sudden change from 'Prentiss' to her nickname.

"Sure."

Morgan led her to the small kitchenette in the bullpen. He looked oddly serious.

"What's up? Who died?" Emily tried to joke, but realized how stupid of her it was to say something like that considering what they worked with.

"I'm sorry, I-" She began, but Morgan cut her off.

"Pen told me you wanted her to trace a call."

Of course. As much as Emily loved Garcia, she couldn't help but feel slightly annoyed at her. She couldn't keep anything away from her chocolate Adonis if so life depended on it.

"Yes I did."

"Is there something you're not telling me, Emily?" Morgan looked at her, and Emily gave in. she couldn't help, looking into his dark, brown, hot, hot eyes... she told him everything from the man in the coffee-shop to the phone-call she had received yesterday, and the call she had gotten only an hour or so ago. Morgan was a great listener, but she already knew that. He didn't interrupt her, his expression changing from tentative, to confused, to angry.

"That son of a bitch!" He said when Emily was done. "We need to tell the other, you realize that, don't you?"

"Yeah..."

"Why didn't you tell me instantly?" Morgan sounded a bit hurt.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize it was related to the case."

"You didn't realize it was related to the case?" Morgan didn't believe his ears.

* * *

Half an hour later, Emily had told the rest of the team, and they were now sitting in their briefing-room. They were all looking a little bit scared for her, and confused. Hotch had been the first to snap out of it, and ordered Emily to go to see one of their sketchers to get a sketch of the guy in the coffee-shop. They were all pretty positive it was O'Connory, but why he hadn't taken Emily when he had seen her there, was still mystery. Morgan was now completely confident he wasn't leaving Emily's side for even a minute, so he had gone with her to the sketcher.

When they returned with the drawing twenty minutes later, Morgan looked angry and Prentiss rather annoyed. They seemed to be arguing, and the rest of the team thought they knew why; Prentiss was bound to have something against being guarded 24/7 like a kid.

"So?" JJ asked them when they walked in.

Emily showed them the picture.

"It's him." Reid said without missing a beat. "You can see it in his features, even though he doesn't have the same hair-color or eye-color."

"Why don't I go see if Garcia can positively confirm your suspicions?" Rossi asked and stood up, grabbing the picture from Emily's grip as he went.

"You do realize we're going to have to bug your phone?" Hotch asked Emily.

"I don't see why that is necessa-"

"Prentiss stop it." Morgan cut her off, earning an annoyed look from her.

"And I'm going to have someone escort you all the time." Hotch continued, ignoring Morgan.

"I reall-" Emily began to once again be cut off by Morgan.

"I can do it!" He said.

"I expected that." Hotch nodded at him. "You can stay in your flat, O'Connory hasn't been aggressive yet." He addressed Emily again.

"So you're just going to wait until he takes her again and then what?" Morgan asked his boss angrily.

"I suggest you watch yourself." Hotch's eyes shot daggers. "I'm not going to let him take her, I want O'Connory behind bars as much as you do. That's why I'm going to put out patrol-cars around Prentiss' block."

Morgan nodded at this approvingly. Emily only rolled her eyes at this. She felt they were being over-protective, she was a FBI-agent after all, she could take care of herself.

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**So... care to review?;)  
**


	16. Chapter 16

**A/****N: I haven't really felt good lately, but I managed to squeeze this out for ya. I know it's getting shorter and shorter, but I'd rather post this now than have you wait for a longer one another two days. So here you go, hope it's still as good as it should be:) I'm trying to keep it as PG as possible...**

**Thank you you awesome people who review, I hope you continue with it and I'd love if other people would do it too:) It's really nice knowing someone is reading what I post and like it (or just want to give building criticism).**

**Disclaimer: I still do not own. This is getting rather lame.**

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CHAPTER 16

_'I don't want expensive gifts; I don't want to be bought. I have everything I want. I just want someone to be there for me, to make me feel safe and secure.'- Princess Diana_

* * *

Morgan drove Emily home that evening. They had stayed late with the rest of the team, trying to find new leads on where Sean O'Connory was, but there wasn't much they actually could do. They could only sit and wait until he decided to come out of his lair. Finally, long past midnight, Morgan called it quits and told the team he would take Emily home and sleep on her couch, and they would come back tomorrow. Hotch had agreed, while making a few phone-calls about the patrol-cars that would be stationed around Emily's block. Emily had tried to object, but sadly for her, the people she worked with were as stubborn as herself.

"Look, I don't need babysitting." Emily spoke out when she and Morgan stood in the elevator.

"Stop it." Morgan smiled.

"What? I'm being serious!" Emily turned to face him.

"Oops, your floor. Saved by the bell!" Morgan threw her one of his signature smiles as the doors opened. "After you milady."

Emily glared at him but walked out, Morgan following her. He stood behind her as she opened her door, which took a little longer than normal doors would as she had installed a few extra locks. Emily heard Morgan breath behind her, and, for some reason, she was very aware of him. She dropped her keys as her finger fumbled to find the right one.

"Here, let me help you." Morgan said and bent over and grabbed the keys for her. "Don't wanna stand here all night." He smiled and touched Emily's back as he moved to take her place. Emily's breathing hitched and she struggled not to make Morgan notice it.

Finally, the door opened. They stepped in in silence and dropped their bags.

"You can, umm" Emily's next mouth's were never said, as as she turned around, Morgan's lips caught hers without a warning. He kissed her tenderly, softly, unsure if she'd let him. Emily was taken by surprise at first by his warm lips, but she gave into it and returned the kiss eagerly. Morgan let his hands run up and down Emily's body, and she rested her hands on his muscular back and on his neck. Something deep down in Emily tingled, as Morgan pushed her backwards and lifted her up on her kitchen counter. His tongue licked her bottom-lip, asking for permission, which she gave him. They made out for a few minutes, until he all too soon pulled breathlessly away. They stayed there for a while, breathing heavily, looking into each others' eyes. Morgan broke eye-contact when his breathing became normal and distanced himself from Emily.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"

"No, it's okay, I'm just as guilty..." Emily jumped down and walked awkwardly to the stairs. "You can sleep on the couch there or in the quest-room, the sheets are clean, I'm gonna, uh-" She nodded upwards and started walking, but stopped as her phone rang.

"That's probably Hotch wondering if we made it home alright." She said and jogged to her bag which was left forgotten next to the door.

But the number was unknown and she frowned as she opened it, sensing that Morgan was looking questionably at her.

"Prentiss."

"Aah... It's been to long." Emily looked up and mouthed 'O'Connory' to Morgan, who dialed Garcia's number.

"O'Connory." Emily said.

"Yes, it's me, how did you guess?" He asked her sarcastically.

"What do you want?" Asked Emily, pacing around in her apartment, hand on her forehead.

"You know the answer to that already, don't you Emily?"

"We're gonna catch you." Emily said, knowing that the longer she kept talking the more chances Garcia had to trace the call.

"Oh I doubt that." O'Connory laughed. "But if you do, it won't be 'till after I've gotten my revenge."

"Revenge?" Emily's voice rose to an angry squeak. "Revenge? What do you possibly have to avenge!?"

"You. You for getting away. You were supposed to die, you know that? You don't deserve your life, you don't deserve your money, you don't deserve your flat, you don't deserve your job. The job _you _take from men like me, hardworking men!" O'Connory screamed. "And now you got Derek Morgan too! You've pulled him down with you, you skank! I knew you were sleeping with them all! How could you otherwise have the job you have, huh!?"

"I earned it. I earned it all! And I don't sleep with any of my co-workers!" Emily was now screaming too. Morgan ran up to her, concern etched on his face.

"Oh yeah right! Don't try to act lie I didn't see what just happened between you two!"

Emily looked up and ran to her window that was facing the main street. She could see a cop-car and cars that were parked on the road, but nothing unusual. The cops were walking around, probably already searching for O'Connory.

"Oh you won't find me!" He sounded half mad. "Adios, 'till we meet again, Agent Prentiss!"

And with that he was gone and Emily was left with a beeping phone, at which she stared at in horror. Morgan walked up to he and caressed her back. He guided her to the couch and sat down with her, and let her rest her head on his shoulder whilst petting her hair.

"Are you alright?" He asked her finally.

"He saw us." Emily said plainly.

"Hmm." Morgan said, his chest vibrating. A moment of silence, then;

"Garcia still couldn't find a trace. I called Hotch too, and he said the police-men couldn't find anyone."

"How did he see us then?" Emily's voice was thin, like a scared child's.

"I don't know Em, I really don't." Morgan shook his head, thinking through all the possibilities. "There's nothing we can do right now but go to sleep."

"I don't wanna be alone." Emily said and looked up at Morgan, allowing herself a moments weakness. He smiled at her. "I know. Lets get you upstairs, I'll stay." And like that, he lifted her up, making Emily giggle slightly.

"Let me down!" She squeaked and pounded on Morgan's back, but he was already jogging up the stairs. He ran into Emily's bedroom and threw her on the bed, following her, laughing. Emily caught his lips and kissed him eagerly.

"We really shouldn't." Morgan broke away, looking sorry.

"Yeah, you're right." Emily said and sat up. "I'm gonna make myself ready for bed." She stood up and walked to her bathroom which was connected to her bedroom.

Morgan couldn't help but admire her apartment. It really was nice. And the view! He shuddered at the thought of the cost of it. But, it was surely one of the perks of being the ambassador's daughter. Except for the fact that you didn't have a normal childhood, one with no roots.

Emily walked out of the bedroom five minutes later, not looking Morgan in the eye. Morgan on his part couldn't take his eyes off of her. She really looked just as beautiful without make-up on as she did with it. And he saw a whole different side of her, as she stood thee, awkwardly, with her hair falling smoothly down over her shoulders, shiny and wavy, and she had on some pink flannel-trousers with small unicorns on them and a gray top. Her big, brown eyes wandered all over the place, except the spot where he was.

"I'm gonna get ready too." Morgan said awkwardly and stood up and walked to the bathroom he too.

Emily bit her lip and jumped into her bed, making space for Morgan. She turned on her side and wondered what the hell she'd gotten herself into.

But Morgan was kinda hot... and he made her feel safe. But he was a co-worker and co-workers were strictly of limits. Hotch would not be happy if she heard about what had happened. But it was jut an innocent kiss. _Two. _Two innocent kisses. Dammit. Everything was just too complicated. She would have to forget this ever happened and act normal. She couldn't lead him on, and he was probably thinking the exact same thing in the bathroom. Emily sighed and closed her eyes.

Morgan walked out and found Emily sleeping on her side of the bed, her back facing him. He jumped into bed and pulled the covers over him, and lay on his back, listening to his and hers breathing, slowly coming into pace. He thought about the kisses, but as he did his body began responding to it too. He quickly changed the object of his thoughts, Emily would be too uncomfortable if she knew. He watched her sleeping form and as sleep crawled over him too, he turned on his side and embraced her in a warm hug, letting his heart beat against her back, inhaling her scent. She smelled like vanilla. He liked that. Most of the women he slept with smelled artificial, or like fruit. He liked fruits but sometimes it was just too intense. Oh wait, the women he slept with? Was he comparing Prentiss to the women he slept with? He wasn't sleeping with Prentiss, he reminded himself.

He let himself fall asleep, his eyelids heavier and heavier each moment passing, listening to Emily asleep, feeling her body slowly rise and fall.

Emily lay on her side, feeling Morgan's warm body around hers. Her eyes were open, but she didn't move when he wrapped himself around her, believing she was asleep. Somehow she felt comfortable with him protecting her. Emily was amazed, this was the first time anyone protected _her_, or made her feel protected for that matter. She fell easily asleep, not bothering to think of O'Connory anymore that night.

* * *

**Penny for your thoughts?:)  
**


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: Thank you so much for your reviews, I think I should get sick more often, if it's true what you say that the last chapter was your favorite! Well, I'm tryina hold the quality up (no pressure me!)! Oh and a little quick warning, there are some curse-words in this one, but not ones you have never heard or ones that'll make you go cry for mommy. If you've read this to this point, there's nothing you can't take! Haha well happy reading!**

**Disclaimer: Misa no own.**

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CHAPTER 17

_'I think the very word stalking implies that you're not supposed to like it. Otherwise, it would be called 'fluffy harmless observation time.'-Molly Harper_

* * *

The birds were singing. Really loudly. How could she possibly have been sleeping with all that noise they were making? Everything was really bright so she rolled over on her stomach. The pillow squished against her face made breathing hard, so she rolled onto her side and slowly opened her eyes. Her own bedroom slowly came into focus. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Gosh, she'd slept well! When was the last time she'd even slept this well?

"Em!? Are you awake?"

Shit! Was that Morgan? Oh yeah... it all came back to her like a tidal-wave. They had kissed. That wasn't good.

"Emily? I made breakfast!" He sounded so cheerful.

"Be right down!" Emily answered him and slowly got up. She had to make herself somewhat presentable. They had to go to Quantico at noon and she wasn't going to go to work without makeup, that was something she had never done and she wasn't going to start that now.

"Hi sunshine!" Morgan was doing something in Emily's kitchen, not facing her, and whatever he was making smelled pretty damned good.

"What are you doing?"

"Making ya breakfast. Why do you sound so suspicions? I ain't gonna burn your kitchen down!" Morgan laughed goodheartedly and turned around. He was wearing gray sweatpants that hung from his hips perfectly and he wore a black, tight top to that which showed off his muscles. Emily realized she was staring and tore her eyes off of him. He really _did _look good...

"I made us bacon and eggs." Morgan showed her the frying pans. "I'm sorry I can't make anything more unique and fancier, I'm sure you've had better breakfasts in France, but I assure you this will be the best thing you've ever put in your mouth. Or at least the second best!" He winked and put the food out on plates, toast-bread underneath and crispy bacon strips on top with an egg, and another toast to top it.

Morgan was right, the food was indeed delicious. The smell made Emily's mouth water and she ate her whole plate in such a pace she thought her stomach was going to explode.

"Well you were hungry all right. I presume it was good?" Morgan smirked.

"Hell yes! Why didn't you tell me you could cook?" Emily said and swallowed a giant mouthful.

"I don't know. Never came up I guess." Morgan shrugged and served himself some more.

A silence followed, enjoyable on Morgan's part and a bit awkward on Emily's. She knew she should say something about the kiss, kisses, yesterday, but something seemed to glue her yaws together. Emily's head kept telling her to spit it out, say that it was wrong and it shouldn't happen again, but her heart told her differently. Suddenly, another thought stopped her reasoning.

"I totally forgot, did they ever catch O'Connory yesterday?"

"Um... no. No he was nowhere to be found." Morgan shrugged.

"Oh..." Emily looked down at her hands in her lap.

"Hey, hey, look here." Morgan stopped eating, misjudging Emily's thoughtful silence for fear. "We're gonna catch him, don't you worry."

"Oh yea I know. Well we should prob-"

_Ring. Ring. Ring._

Emily's phone rang. She shot Morgan, who's whole body-languague changed from relaxed to tense in a nanosecond, a meaningful look and stood up and went to get it from the coffee-table where she had left it the previous night.

"Prentiss." It sounded like a sigh.

"Hello Emily. Slept well?"

"Yes I did, O'Connory." Emily closed her eyes, steeling herself for whatever was coming next.

"I'm getting tired of calling you everyday."

Silence.

"I think I'm going to come and visit you soon." O'Connory's voice was like salt rubbing against Emily's wounds.

Emily shuddered and swallowed. What was this supposed to mean? Was he finally coming out of his hide-out and showing himself? Part of Emily really wanted him to go six feet under so she could forget he ever existed, but another part of her wanted to fight, to find him and beat him, to finally be the one to have control, towering over the other, watching him bleed.

"Want to make a deal?" Emily spontaneously asked.

"A deal, agent Prentiss?" O'Connory sounded surprised.

"A deal."

"And what kind of deal are you talking about?"

"You tell me."

"Hmm.." O'Connory went silent, probably thinking hard.

"I-" He began, but Emily never heard the rest of his words as Morgan, who had sneaked up from behind, grabbed her phone and tore it away from her.

"Now you listen you sick son of a bitch! Stop fucking calling Emily or you'll have to deal with me!" Morgan shouted at the phone.

"Morgan!" Emily grasped after her phone, but Morgan jumped out of her reach.

"Oh yeah it's me! We're going to find you and I'm going to make you pay for the things you've done!" He continued, unshaken of Emily's tries to get her phone back.

"What? I don't give a damn about FBI-regulations right now! Of course! You've made it personal by taking Emily! What the hell are you talking about man? Fuck off, no!" Morgan punched a wall and threw Emily's phone at it, making it break completely.

"What the hell Morgan!?" Emily ran up to her phone and examined it. "It's completely broken!"

"You care about your phone in this situation, huh!?" Morgan stormed around and looked angrily at her. "Not about the fact that there's some maniac out there wanting to kill you!?"

"What did he say?" Emily changed the subject, controlling her voice, making it calm and not accusing, as accusing was obviously not going home with Morgan.

"He asked if I cared about you and why I was so angry and he told me you only were on my team 'cause you've slept with everyone else on the team and now you were digging your claws on me." Morgan looked sharply at Emily, watching closely how she'd react.

Emily sighed and sat down on her couch.

"Nothing new then."

"What? He's said that to you before?" Morgan looked surprised and sat down next to her.

"Morgan I spent a week or so alone getting tortured by that guy. Of course he's told me that." Emily rolled her eyes at Morgan, as if she was annoyed at him for not guessing this.

"I guess he's trying to figure out a another solution to why you made it this far in your career. Fits the profile, him thinking women don't deserve to be in high positions." Morgan thought.

"Yeah." Emily tapped her knees. "We should get going now, don't want to keep the team waiting."

* * *

"Go get a disposable from Garcia." Hotch told Emily and looked reprovingly at Morgan.

Emily nodded. Morgan and she had arrived to the BAU bullpen half an hour earlier, and they had gone through different possibilities on where O'Connory could have been when he called Emily the night before. They had come up with the result, that he had to have been in one of the houses in front of Emily's, looking into her apartment with binoculars though his window, or then he could have hacked the security-footage from Emily's house, but that wouldn't explain how he knew what Emily and Morgan had done once they entered Emily's apartment, since the cameras covered only the hallways.

Emily and Morgan had skillfully talked their way around the subject of what they actually had done once they entered Emily's condo. Emily had just told the rest of the team about the little incident with her phone as Morgan had talked to O'Connory.

"What's up Pen?" Emily asked when she entered Garcia's office, her office that looked anything but like an office.

"Hi sweet honey-pie! You okay? I heard about last night?" Garcia's tone became worried from cheerful.

Emily's heart skipped a beat when she at first thought Garcia meant hers and Morgan's exchange of 'emotions', but then she figured out that Garcia couldn't know about that, and was talking about the phone-call.

"Oh yeah, nothing but the usual." Emily laughed, making Garcia chuckle too.

"Little bird sung you need a new phone?"

"Right as always, Garcia."

"What happened to your old one?" Garcia wondered whilst she rummaged through her drawers.

"Morgan." Emily said and looked at Garcia with a knowing look. Garcia laughed.

"What did my Hot Stuff do now?"

"Smashed it."

"Really? Oh I just love him." Garcia sighed.

"Garcia!" Emily said, putting her on tracks again.

"Right, right, you need a phone." She reemerged from rummaging through one of her bottom-drawers. "Here you go."

"Are you kidding me?" Emily's eyebrows rose as she looked disbelievingly at what Garcia held in her hand.

"This is what I got." Garcia shrugged and smiled a devious smile. "What's wrong with it?"

"Garcia it's pink. With glittering hearts on it." Emily looked wide-eyed at the 'phone'.

"What? I think it's cute!"

"Oh please kill me." Emily said as she accepted the phone.

* * *

**So... Please continue with your awesome reviewing? I will give you candy if you do.  
**


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: I think there will be only a few chapters after this one, maybe two or three we'll see:)**

**Thank you for your reviews, you're my oxygen. PLEASE continue to review, here is my carbon dioxide to you:**

**Disclaimer: Don't own Criminal Minds nor McDonald's**

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CHAPTER 18

_'She was unstoppable_  
_Move fast just like an avalanche_  
_But now she's stuck deep in cement_  
_Wishing that they never ever met'- Pearl, Katy Perry_

* * *

Success! Finally! The whole team relaxed when Garcia's triumph scream echoed through the briefing-room, and carried out to the bullpen, making a few agents look up. Emily rounded the table, arms crossed and looked down over Garcia's shoulder. She had finally managed to get a signal from O'Connory's phone. Reid came up to stand next to Emily, and shot her a small, relieved smile.

O'Connory had missed something when he suddenly called the BAU, agitated because he couldn't get hold of Emily, and Garcia who had had time getting her computer's ready to trace O'Connory and brake through his defensive-walls.

"What are you waiting for? Let's go!" Hotch said and grabbed his jacket and was already half way through the bullpen before the rest of the team had time to react.

They sat in silence in the car, fidgeting with their clothes as the car rushed forwards, sirens screaming at the other cars to move. The car seemed to speed in an unnatural pace across town, the things outside only being blurry objects, no-one really had the time or want to look closer. The atmosphere in the car was tense. No-one wanted to make conversation, and they all sat stiffly in their seats, preparing themselves for what was to come.

The car jerked to a stop, tires screeching against the concrete, throwing everyone forwards in their seats. The SWAT-car stopped behind the SUV and the SWAT-team jumped out, and waited for orders. Doors opened and the agents jumped out, taking their guns out from their holsters. They had parked in front of a cheap, worn trailer that was parked in the edge of a caravan-camping-spot. A few curious campers walked closer, looking at the scene that took place in front of them. Rossi walked, slightly crouched, forwards, his gun trained slightly t his right on the ground. He motioned at Hotch to follow him, and Hotch covered him. Reid and Morgan sneaked their way around to the back of the trailer.

Emily stayed back, watching the scene unfold in front of her. There was something that stopped her from following the others. There was this force that held her still, deep down in her core, making her feel seasick and oddly distant. She was glad JJ stayed with her, holding her gun steadily pointed to the ground, but close enough to slightly rub against Emily when she moved, keeping Emily somewhat in the present.

"FBI! Open up!" Emily heard Rossi's voice somewhere in the the distance. The rest happened in slow-motion. Rossi crushed against the door, making it fly open. He and Hotch disappeared into the trailer.

Emily heard muffled shouts of "Clear!", and then everything went quiet, they were probably looking through the trailer by now.

"Damn." Morgan said once they'd cleared the whole trailer, not finding O'Connory anywhere. Hotch shook his head and left, probably to do some of his duties as the boss he was. Rossi told Morgan and Reid to look through the trailer, and then he followed Hotch's steps.

Morgan found a bread on a plate that looked pretty fresh, indicating that O'Connory hadn't been gone for more than three hours or so.

"Come and take a look at this, Morgan." Reid's voice came from the back of the trailer.

Morgan dropped the magazine he had found on the table next to the bred. Reid was standing behind a pair of curtains that shielded the sleeping-space of the trailer. He was standing, looking at something on the wall with his hands in his pockets, so much Reid-like.

"What is it?" Morgan asked him once he was as close he could get to the Wonder Boy he could in the small area.

Reid shifted a bit, letting Morgan get a good look at what he had found. There were dozens of pictures nailed up on the wall, accompanied with small sticky-notes. Morgan squinted in the poor lighting, looking closer at the pictures. He gasped when he realized why Reid had sounded so hollow when he'd ordered Morgan over.

There were pictures, all right, and they were all, every single one of them, of Emily. There were pictures of Emily in her car, there were pictures of Emily doing her groceries, there were pictures of Emily in her apartment, there were pictures of Emily doing pretty much _everything_. Morgan looked in horror at the pictures, his stomach dropping a few inches the longer he looked.

"He's been watching her all this time..." He finally managed to croak out.

"We knew he was stalking her, but this badly..." Reid shook his head. "We should tell the others."

"Hotch?" Reid asked for his boss' attention, where he stood, writing something down on his phone, pacing next to JJ, who was rubbing Emily's arm, trying to talk to her but Emily looked scarily pale and stared at something in the distance. Her eyes locked with Reid's as he approached them and Reid had to steel himself off when her hollow eyes met his.

"Yes?" Hotch turned around and looked at Reid.

"We found something. I think you need to see it." Reid was strangely aware of Emily's eyes burning into his neck. Something stopped him from saying what they'd found out because Emily stood there, listening, and he was somehow repelled by the thought of Emily seeing the pictures of herself in that van like that.

Thankfully, Hotch understood and didn't question Reid, but only nodded and walked quickly to the van. A light but determined touch on Reid's shoulder stopped him from following Hotch.

"What did you find?" Asked Emily from behind him.

Reid turned around and looked straight into Emily's brown, wondering eyes. They looked questionably at him, but they were still somehow guarded.

"Uh-" Reid began, not sure of what to say.

"Tell me, Reid, or I'll go see for myself." Emily said warningly.

"O'Connory wasn't there, but we found a lot of pictures."

"Of me?"

Reid nodded. Emily swallowed and marched to the trailer and pushed JJ aside when she tried to stop her.

* * *

"Emily?" Rossi eyed the younger, tired agent next to him. She was pale, a bit too pale, and was looking out of the window of the SUV he was driving. He had told Hotch he'd take her out to grab something to eat, and Hotch agreed without further discussion.

"Emily?" He asked again.

"Huh?" Her body jerked and she looked confused at him. "Did you say something?"

"How are you doing?" Rossi asked, knowing it was kind of a stupid question to ask her when she obviously wasn't doing very well, but he decided to let her tell him herself.

"Fine." She looked out of the window again, but not before giving him a small smile.

Rossi sighed. He didn't like her building up walls around him. He could see through her that well that he could tell when she wasn't alright, but it bothered him that she wouldn't confess in him.

Rossi dropped the subject for a while, while ordering food. He'd gone with McDonald's, since he didn't know anyone who didn't like McDonald's. Emily wanted McNuggets and an orange juice and Rossi himself went with a Mcfeast.

They ate in the car, parked in the parking-lot, overseeing some cars and the road in front of them. Everything looked oddly gray, the concrete, the cars, even the sky was completely gray and it looked like it would rain any moment now.

"So, when are you gonna give that up?" He finally broke the silence.

"What?" Emily asked.

"That." Rossi said simply.

Emily sighed and looked out. The weather seemed to reflect what she was feeling; all dead inside. She had momentarily felt alive when she had been with Morgan, but that quickly faded away when they returned to work.

"I'm really tired."

Rossi looked inquisitively at her. He didn't come up with anything to say, so he let her continue.

"I'm trying to keep it up for the team but it is pretty nerve-wracking having O'Connory calling you whenever."

"You know they wouldn't judge you if you were a bit... if you showed more emotion sometimes."

Emily looked at him, furrowing her brows.

"I was taught that showing emotions was weakness." She paused. "And the times I showed emotions, confessed in someone, the used it against me and shot me down."

"The team wouldn't do that."

"I guess not." Emily shrugged and looked out the window once more. "I'm just tired. Tired of this. I want O'Connory gone already."

"I know. Me too. We all do." Rossi sighed and took a bit of his hamburger.

"What does he want?" Emily asked, more herself than Rossi, although she already knew the answer: her.

Rossi didn't answer. After a while he spoke out:

"Well know that we're here for you anytime. Don't hesitate." Rossi touched Emily's thigh and smiled at her. Emily actually returned the smile.

"Thank you." She put her hand on his. "Really."

"Anytime kiddo." Rossi said, pleased with himself. "Shall we return and catch this creep?"

"Let's do it."

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**Ps... I finally got to use a Katy Perry-quote! Yes! I just love her! *KatyCat*!**

**Don't stop reading even if ya don't like Katy... but you should... otherwise you're wrong.**


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: Shaking things up a tad; having this chapter in the lovely Sean O'Connory's POV. I feel a bit twisted, writing how he thinks, but hope ya like it..**

**Oh and thanks for the reviews, but you oughta do better than two reviews this time, OK? I love you but I'd like to get some feedback too, since I know you're reading. So what do we say, review? It only takes two seconds to write good, for example. So please, pleaaase review!**

**Disclaimer: Don't own.**

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CHAPTER 19

_'Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. if you're alive, it isn't.'-Richard Bach_

* * *

He knew they would fall for it. He smiled contently as he hung up and began gathering his stuff. Only the essential. The pictures would give them a hell of a scare, he thought and put his stuff in a backpack. He'd have to hurry, they would be here soon.

When everything was like he wanted it to be when they'd find his trailer, he marched out, not bothering to lock the door behind him. He sat down in his rented gray Volkswagen and started the old motor. The car wasn't the most expensive car you could find, but he was happy with it. It hadn't failed him. Yet.

He drove slowly and parked a bit away from his trailer. This was the perfect spot. He had gone out earlier today and to check the camp out. Like this, he could observe the scene in front of him without getting detected. They'd never find him. He chuckled at their stupidity as he searched his bag for a sandwich. When he didn't find it, he remembered he had left it on a plate in the kitchen. As much as he would have liked to have it with him right now, he couldn't risk going back.

After about fifteen minutes, he saw their cars arrive. They raised a cloud of sand and dust as they wheeled into the camp, sirens screaming. A few of his stupid neighbors peeked out from their trailers to see what all this was about. He saw they'd taken the SWAT-team with them. Unnecessary. Her co-workers jumped out of their SUV, all with their guns ready, and then he saw her. He was content to see that she was a lot thinner than the first time he'd seen her, and she looked sick, her skin being grayish. Good. He'd have some sort of impact after all.

He carefully eyed what was happening, taking mental notes. All of the men rushed forwards, leaving _her _and the blond media liaison behind. They burst into his trailer, their faces angry, careful, on alert. She was standing, obviously struggling with something. Part of her looked like she wanted to join the others, but she didn't. The media liaison, Jennifer, if he could remember correctly, watched the trailer, then switched her focus onto Emily when nothing interesting happened in the trailer. She had concern etched on her face, it was obvious Emily didn't normally act like this. He guessed she would have been with the men searching thru his trailer. That bitch. He was glad she didn't now, maybe he had taught her something whilst she was with him. Let the men do their jobs.

After a while, her boss and the old agent came out. And behind them the tall, skinny agent who he knew had been greatly affected by his co-worker's abduction. He didn't like them not agreeing with him; didn't they know that it was for their own good he had taken her. He shook his head in disappointment.

The skinny agent looked a bit scared as he carefully walked past _her _and said something to his boss. His boss nodded and walked to the trailer. At the same time Emily had walked up to the skinny guy, was it Spencer Reid? They exchanged a few words and she walked into the trailer. They tried to stop her but she forced her way thru.

He should leave now. As much as the scene in front of him intrigued him, he backed out, calmly, not wanting to arouse any suspicion. Nobody stopped him, as he had found another exit than the one they had used when they had arrived.

* * *

The drive took a lot longer than it usually would, since he drove along an unknown number of small, narrow roads. That would make it harder for them to track him. He finally found a deserted parking-lot, where he parked in the far end corner, where nobody would bother him.

He'd lay low for the rest of the evening, maybe reading a book. Then, he would start planning. He would have to finish his work soon, because, as clever as he was, he was messing with the country's finest minds, and that was not to underestimate. They were getting closer, he could practically feel them breathing down on his neck.

He switched to the back of the car, and lay down. It wasn't the most comfortable position, as he was a tall man, but it was bearable. He closed his eyes for a moment, taking in what he had accomplished during the past year.

He had killed seven women. Seven was a nice number. He played through the moments with the women, savoring each memory. Yeah, he'd done a hell of a job, but he could already see that he was changing the world. Maybe some young courageous lad would follow in his footsteps when he himself was gone. He would have taught his son to continue what he'd started, if only he had one.

His curled his hands into fists, as he thought about his ex girlfriend. He had been madly in love with her, and when he had proposed, she had left him. She would have given him the perfect son, if not for the fact that she'd left him. He should maybe have killed her, too, but he had bailed at the mere thought of it. He sill loved her. He felt his stomach pinch when her face emerged in front of him on the inside of his closed eyelids. She was beautiful, dark hair, dark eyes and a mesmerizing smile that showed off all of her white teeth.

He opened his eyes when his breathing had become fast, his chest raising and sinking, a thin layer of sweat forming on his forehead. He hated that she still had an effect on him. His brain suddenly reminded him that he could take his rage out on someone else, someone who looked like her, without her getting harmed, because, deep down, he didn't want her to get hurt.

That someone was Emily Prentiss. He smiled when an image of her appeared in front of his eyes. It wasn't the image of a strong woman, tall, working for the FBI, but the image of a broken woman, laying in front of him, her own blood covering her, her body shivering.

Sean felt the wonderful feeling of contentment when he thought of Emily Prentiss like this, it was the same feeling he got when he thought of his previous kills. But this one had gone wrong.

He remembered how his helper, Mike Murray, had gone down to check on Emily, and then that feeling of panic he had gotten when he had heard the sirens. His body had filled with adrenaline as he had jumped up, run as fast as he could out to a smaller room, and hidden with his gun. He knew they would split up once inside Murray's house, so he only had to worry about facing one or two.

He was right, as always, when two police-men had entered the room. He had shot them both, not happy about injuring men on the duty of their jobs, but if that was what it took, he couldn't help it. He was a man on God's mission. Sean silently thanked God for having is back. He had gotten away, once again.

But he knew God was telling him his remaining time on earth was getting short. He was going to die killing Emily Prentiss. She was his last one. He had to make sure he finished what he had started, and that was going to be a lot trickier with Derek Morgan constantly running around her, not letting her leave his sight for more than a second. But if it was a second he was getting, he had to make sure he worked that second. He would have to separate them somehow, he couldn't take them both. Plus the fact that he had to make sure not to kill Derek Morgan. He was innocent, only blinded by Emily Prentiss. They all were, and he couldn't blame them.

* * *

Sean shifted, reached for his book and began reading. The words he saw had no meaning to him, and the sentences he read made no sense, so he shut the book. He sat up and got out of the car.

The cold, fresh air caressed his face and soothed him. He breathed in, deeply, and let it out a few times. The air was already making him feel better and refreshed. He knew there was no sense in trying to read his book, so he sat down on the hood of his car.

He watched the sunset, the sunset that would be his last. It was such a shame he had never really appreciated the wonders of the nature. A lonely tree swayed in the wind, making its leaves rattle. The birds sung in the early spring. There were still small piles of snow to be seen, but most of it had melted.

The sun cast a reddish, slightly orange look on everything as it slowly sunk lower and lower, and eventually disappeared behind the gray buildings.

Sean shivered. As soon as the sun was gone the warmth was gone as well. Suddenly, it began drizzling. He quickly ran into his car and into the dryness. He sunk down on the seat and turned the heat up. He had only been in the rain for a few seconds but he felt soaked, and cold.

In the heat of the car, Sean drifted to sleep. It was a restless slumber, in which he threw himself left to right on the seat, unable to sleep quietly. Every time he opened his eyes, the same sentence formed in his head.

_Tomorrow. It's all coming down tomorrow._

* * *

**So,what do you think? I'm pretty pleased myself:)**


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: So.. I fathom you've been waitin' for this one? I'm sorry it took me a while to get this posted, but I wanted to make sure it's as good as it should be.**

**Thank you SOOO much to those who have reviewed, I knew we could do better than two reviews! Thanks! I hope ya wanna continue and review this one as well!**

**It's so weird, I'm trying to write Emily and Derek, but I can't! I don't know why, but he has to stay Morgan. Sorry!**

**Disclaimer: I still don't own, which should be pretty clear by now.**

* * *

CHAPTER 20

_'Your nightmares follow you like a shadow, forever.'-Aleksandar Hemon, The Lazarus Project_

* * *

Sean woke up at the crack of dawn. The car was chilly-he hadn't bothered putting the heat up to its maximum last night, and there was frost, small, shimmering white crystals on the windows of the car. His respiration made small clouds of fog when the warm air came out of his mouth into the coldness around his body.

The sky was clear, not a single cloud was to be seen. It was one of those days when the weather was perfect, the sun was shining, but it still didn't send it's heat towards the earth, leaving it sunny- but cold.

Sean left his car, and stretched his stiff members on the parking-lot, which was still empty. No-one had bothered him since he had arrived and he appreciated that. Sean was in his best element when he was alone. That was something his teachers often liked to complain about to his parents about, that he couldn't work with the other kids.

The birds were singing like the night before, and they gave him a feeling of joy, the one you only could get when you knew that the long, dark, cold weeks of winter finally was over. Sean rubbed his hands together, trying to make them warm. His stomach made the noise that indicated that he needed to nourish it. Sean walked back to his car and started it. He'd drive to some fast-food restaurant and when he'd be satisfied he'd start his plan.

* * *

The team was gathered in their briefing-room, as usual. Garcia had gotten a trace; O'Connory had only thirty minutes earlier bought food from a Taco Bell. Rossi and Morgan had gone to the restaurant to talk with the sales-man, even though that wouldn't probably help them much. Reid was staring at a map of Quantico and it's surroundings, including Emily's apartment, trying to make a geographical profile. Emily stared at the small red and green pins on the map, wondering what was racing through Spencer's mind, maybe his mind was their deadliest weapon at this point?

Hotch was in his office, doing whatever he was doing, most likely talking on the phone. Emily sat next to JJ at the table on which they were both almost lying on. They were watching Reid working, which could both be extremely relaxing, or extremely annoying, since he paced across the floor, talking to himself, talking sentences no-one else could understand. He looked completely engrossed in his work, not noticing that the other two were staring.

No-one made the effort to start a conversation, so both Emily and JJ sat quietly. Emily glanced over at the blond woman next to her. JJ was staring at Reid with her mouth half-open. She hadn't even noticed it herself. Emily smiled. It was funny guessing what was going through her mind. JJ didn't notice Emily staring- she looked like she would fall asleep to Spencer's rambling.

Garcia walked in, bringing JJ back to reality. Garcia wore just as bright, colorful clothes as she always did, but she looked more fatigue, not quite her usual bubbly self.

"Coffee." Emily said, her voice rasp from not using it much, when the smell reached her. She could hear in her voice she sounded like an addict, which most people would classify her as. Garcia nodded and put the cups on the table in front of JJ, who gave one to Emily, then practically had to slap Reid into reality, but he did take his coffee with a thankful smile at Garcia.

* * *

Yes. Yes this was it. O'Connory had driven to his hide-out and was now staring at a piece of paper on which there had been drawn and written all sorts of notes.

Sean stood up at run his hand through his messy hair. He looked himself in the mirror. He was paler than he used to be, his eyes were sunken into their sockets and his hair had grown. He run his hand through his hair again. It had been a long time since he had a haircut. But all of that stuff was shallow, it didn't matter anymore.

He turned around, pretty pleased with his 'mad-man'-look.

"Hey Seanie! How are you doing? You look a bit sick." It was Greta, the owner of the apartment. She was an old lady, sweet and naive.

"I'm fine, thank you." Sean instantly stepped into the shoes of the young, hard-working lad he pretended to be when Greta was around.

"What are these, my dear boy?" Greta lifted his note-pad and scrunched her eyes together, making her already wrinkled face appear more wrinkled.

"Nothing!" Sean said and quickly tore the notes out of her hand.

Greta looked inquisitively at him for a few beats, before she turned around.

"I'm going to make food. Are you hungry?"

"Yes please."

Sean let out a quiet breath of relief. Greta was certainly old, somewhere between 80 and death, but she was quite sharp. But it was easy for him to fool her. In the years he had known her, she had always been as smart, but he was almost sad to see that all of her movements seemed more labored and she didn't push things as she used to.

Sean had met Greta when he had been visiting Washington for the summer when he was younger, and she had been kind enough to take him in without further questioning. This assortment suited Sean well, and he had never been happier that he'd met her in a grocery-store and not online, because that technical assistant Penelope Garcia wouldn't be able to track him down here.

* * *

"According to my calculations, O'Connory has to live somewhere here." Reid pointed out an area on the map.

"That's quite a long shot. Can't you rule it down further?" Emily said, quirking an eyebrow at him.

"Nope, I'm sorry." Reid shrugged and sat down next to Rossi, who had just arrived with Morgan from their trip to Taco Bell, which hadn't given them anything new, except for Morgan who had found a new Taco he had never tried, and which was "sensational!", using his choice of words.

"So what are we going to do?" JJ asked the group, looking at each one of them, searching for an answer.

"Garcia, you should run a check on the people who live in the area Reid pointed out." Hotch said.

"Check if you find someone linked to O'Connory. If you don't find anything, just run a basic back-ground check on everyone, see if they have criminal records and so on, you know what to do." Rossi explained.

"Okay. But that's gonna take a while." Garcia nodded.

"Is this all we have?" Morgan asked, and everyone could hear the obvious frustration in his voice.

"Sadly." Hotch said. "We didn't find anything helpful in his trailer, but now he can't go back there at least."

"But what does that tell us?" Emily asked.

"What's his next move? Is he polishing his last touches?" Rossi continued her thought mysteriously.

* * *

Sean sat down in his car. He had everything he needed, and he had written his testament, in which he gave everything he owned to Greta.

He drove carefully, not in some kind o hurry. The other cars honked at him, their drivers casting angry looks at him, but he didn't care. What a shame for him it would be if he died in a car-accident now.

He was fully prepared, but he couldn't help feeling butterflies in his stomach. He could not screw this up. He bit his lip nervously.

He had full faith in himself and in God, but that didn't mean he wasn't nervous about what he was doing. He said a silent prayer, asking God to help him with this task of his. He was completely sure that, in whatever direction this would take him, it would be the plan of God and he had to trust that God was right, that he'd help him.

When he drove onto the road that led to her building, he was even more nervous than before, if that was even possible. He had to hope she wasn't bringing Derek Morgan with her- he really didn't want to hurt the guy, he liked him. But if he had no other options, he'd have to try to knock him out, and not kill him. Just make him unconscious for an hour or so, that would give Sean plenty of time to deal with _her_.

When Sean parked his car, he could almost hear the song 'The Final Countdown' blasting in his ears. He walked up to her building and took a deep breath, trying to steady his nerves. _Showtime._

* * *

"Nothing." Garcia said and looked up at her team, looking at them as if they would scream at her and throw heavy objects at her head. Some let out disappointed sighs, some let their tense shoulders drop.

"That's okay Baby Girl, you did great." Morgan tapped her reassuringly on her shoulder.

"Go have a few hour's break, take a nap and come back fresh." Hotch said, out of ides for the first time in his life.

The team murmured disapprovingly and slowly lingered their way out to the bullpen, then just as slowly and just as unmotivated, they gathered their belongings and walked out.

Hotch watched them from his window in his office, and smiled. It was that rare, little, almost unnoticeable smile he sometimes used. He watched his team so desperately not wanting to stop working. He shook his head and turned his back to them, thinking that this was probably the only team that wouldn't want to go home. He praised his luck for being the Unit Chief of precisely this Unit.

* * *

"Are you still going to tag along?" Emily teased and elbowed Morgan.

"Yep. I'm not leaving your side 'till O'Connory is caught." Morgan's chest swallowed with pride for having the role of Emily's protector, even though part of him knew that the one who was the last person who needed protection was probably Prentiss. But maybe it felt nice to her to know that there was for once someone who protected _her_, and not the other way around.

"Oh great." Emily rolled her eyes at him.

* * *

They parked Morgan's car in which they had driven to Emily's apartment-building. They hopped out and closed the doors with slams that echoed along the road. Emily lived in a pretty normal-looking street, there was a few small convenience-stores and a flower-boutique with colorful flowers on display and finally one very dusky-looking curtain-store. Morgan silently wondered if Emily had ever been in it.

People hurried past them, engulfed in their own worlds, talking into phones or with their friends, or just walking, eyes downcast past Emily and Morgan but a few nodded at Emily and she nodded back at them.

They walked into Emily's apartment-building, small-talking and rode the elevator in comfortable silence.

When Emily opened the door to her apartment, she walked in, took off her coat and when she turned around, Morgan had closed the door and closed the distance between them. Emily's heart was suddenly beating hard against her still sore rib-cage, and she was surprised Morgan didn't hear it. Her hair rose on her arms. Morgan walked even closer without saying a word, until he was so close Emily could literally count every single one of his eyelashes.

He leaned forwards and their lips met. Emily was once again taken by surprise by how smooth and well-known his lips felt against her own, even though they had only kissed once before.

Morgan let his hands travel freely across the body that was pushed up against his, and she let her hands grasp his scalp, as if she was trying to grab hair that wasn't there.

Morgan's phone buzzed and when the buzzings didn't stop, he broke the kiss.

"Gotta... take this." He said, panting, and walked away from Emily. "Hello?"

Emily stood, frozen where Morgan had left her. She had let him kiss her. _Again_. She could practically see her mother in front of her scolding her.

She was breaking every rule there was about co-workers. But the feeling it gave her when he kissed her... it was not replaceable.

"I'm gonna take a shower." She mimed to Morgan and he nodded.

She undressed. First her pants. Then her shirt. She had to keep her thoughts focused only on that task, and not on the man downstairs. She undid her hair, and felt that feeling one feel when they've had their hair up all day in a tight hair-do, and when you let it loose that evening, it's like the roots of your hair hurt.

A noise stopped Emily in her tracks. It had come from her closet. The FBI-side-badass-profiler-agent of her kicked in, going through all the possibilities of this situation's continuation.

She walked, like a cat, without making any noise to her bedroom-drawer and slowly coaxed it open as quietly as she could. Her hand found her back-up gun without her eyes leaving the closet, and she slowly clicked the safety off.

She then pointed the gun at her closet and walked towards it, every sense on high alert. She pushed the door open and quite literally felt her heart jump up to her throat.

"Serge! Lei mi ha spaventato!" It was her black cat, who when she opened the door ran past her, looking angry because of the disturbance. Emily clicked the safety off, glad she hadn't fired. She talked Italian to him, as she had found that he listened best when she spoke in that language.

Suddenly, something knocked her flat on her stomach with such a force she went breathless and fell down with a loud thump.

"Emily?" Morgan's voice came from downstairs. "Everything OK?"

But Emily didn't have the time to answer, as the someone or something that had attacked her attacked her again by kicking her in the stomach, making a little sound of pain escape her lips. She tried to roll over, but her attacker kicked her once again in the stomach, and then delivered a kick to her hand, making her gun fly out of her hand and land several feet away.

"Prentiss? I'm coming up!" Morgan screamed from downstairs.

Emily opened her mouth to answer, but her attacker threw himself over her, straddling her to the floor. He flipped her over so that she lay on her stomach, him sitting on her back. He tied her hands together behind her back and lifted her feet quite painfully up and bend them so that they were attached to her hands as well.

Emily mentally scolded herself for being such an easy target. Hadn't years of experience taught her anything?

But then the attacker was gone. She heard Morgan's footsteps hurrying closer.

"Derek, no! It's a trap don't-" But it was too late. She heard a loud sound and a body falling heavily to the ground.

"What the-" Morgan said angrily.

Emily couldn't see what was happening, as she wasn't facing the door, but she could imagine: Morgan tried to reach for his gun, UNSUB kicks it away, Morgan tries to wrestle the UNSUB off of him, UNSUB hits him repeatedly in the face, basing on the sounds. UNSUB beats Morgan until he's still, then ties him up too.

Then the room went quiet except or the UNSUB's labored breaths. Morgan wasn't the easiest man he could have picked to fight, Morgan was fit, young and trained FBI agent.

"Morgan!? Morgan are you okay!?" Emily screamed.

"Of course he's not okay you stupid slag! This is all your fault..." It was the voice from Emily's nightmares. It was the voice she heard when she screaming woke up in the nights. It was the voice from the phone-calls. It was her nightmare. It was Sean O'Connory.

* * *

**I'm sorry I had to end this like this... but it would have made such a long chapter otherwise! Oh and when she talks to Sergio in Italian, she said 'you scared me!'.**

**Let me kindly remind you to please review!**


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N:** **I apologize once again for the long wait, I hope it was worth it.**

**Thank you so much for all the reviews, you guys are great!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own so don't sue.**

* * *

CHAPTER 21

_'Ends are not bad things, they just mean that something else is about to begin. And there are many things that don't really end, anyway, they just begin again in a new way. Ends are not bad and many ends aren't really an ending; some things are never-ending.'-C. JoyBell. C._

* * *

Emily tugged at the ropes that were bound around her wrists, but they didn't loosen their grip of her. Emily tried a different approach, and started slowly crawling across the floor. She could hear O'Connory downstairs, he had left a while ago, cursing nothing and everything.

Emily could see Morgan lying motionless next to the door. When she had made her way up to him, she could see a giant blueish bruise on his forehead, which was already swelling up and looked pretty nasty.

"Morgan! Morgan!" She whispered, hoping she wasn't making enough noise for O'Connory to hear her.

But Morgan continued to lay still without moving. His eyelids were moving though, and Emily took that for a good sign. The only other sign that was indicating that Morgan still was alive was the slow rise and fall of his chest.

Emily gently shook him, but he didn't respond. This was starting to worry Emily. He had been out for a good fifteen minutes now, and she should have been able to shake him awake if he was only unconscious. He was probably just knocked out, it wasn't that bad, Emily told herself as she watched the swelling on Morgan's forehead only grow bigger.

Emily started blindly undoing the knots tying her feet together, but to access them with her hands bound behind her back, she had to lay in a highly uncomfortable position. This whole scene was highly uncomfortable, now that she thought about it. Morgan was lying dead-still on the floor next to her and there was nothing she could do right now to help him, her phone was downstairs with O'Connory who was probably only figuring out how to kill her whilst making her suffer the most, and on top of all that, she was half-naked.

* * *

While Emily's fingers were working on freeing her feet, she thought. O'Connory was downstairs, with her gun. Her only other gun was in her safe which was in the living-room, and it would be impossible for her to reach it without O'Connory noticing. Her phone was downstairs as well, right on the kitchen-table where she had left it. If only Morgan was awake... that would double their chances of getting out of this alive.

Emily searched through his pockets but didn't find neither a cellphone nor a gun. Darn it, O'Connory had thought of getting rid of Morgan's stuff too. Emily had to admit it, he was pretty bright. Twisted, but not stupid.

Anyways, this left Emily with two options. Option number one: Battle O'Connory and shoot him or cuff him, which, either one she chose to do, would be quite a task since she couldn't use her hands. No, she couldn't do that, so that left her with option two: Somehow alert Garcia and make her send back-up while she negotiated with O'Connory, buying the team and herself and Morgan time.

But she needed a phone to reach Garcia. And the phones were all downstairs.

Maybe she could try to talk to O'Connory, and the team would eventually guess everything wasn't alright with her and Morgan when neither of them answered their phone or showed up at the bullpen. But would they realize they were in trouble fast enough?

Emily had no time to think of a plan before she heard footsteps coming closer, and moments later O'Connory reemerged in Emily's bedroom. His cold eyes wandered around the room for a moment, taking in the scene, before they landed on Emily.

Emily wanted to look away, but she couldn't and wouldn't. She remembered the profile they had made for him, and it clearly said that she could buy more time by not being weak or doing what he wanted her to do.

O'Connory smiled when she didn't look away and walked closer. He knelt down next to Emily, squatted in a similar way that she did when she examined a crime-scene. O'Connory's icy eyes almost stared into Emily's soul, and she felt like she was back when he held her captive and the team hadn't found her yet.

"Finally..." He let a hand run up and down her bare body whilst his eyes never left hers. "I've waited too long. You should never had gotten away, but I know now, that it was meant that way, as I know everything will end tonight. If you play along, it won't hurt as much."

Emily felt anger boil up inside her and she spit in his face.

"Never!"

O'Connory smacked her in her face, but then instantly pulled away, wiping her spit off of his face.

"You chose."

He shrugged and stood up, eying the room. Then he seemed to make a decision as he bent over and lifted Morgan up on his shoulders.

"Where are you taking him!?" Emily shouted after him but he didn't answer her and all too soon she was left alone, hearing nothing but her heartbeat drumming in her ears.

Emily stated frantically pulling at he restraints, making them dig into her skin. It hurt, but it didn't matter. All Emily could think of was that she needed to get to Morgan.

* * *

Soon, her efforts paid off and her feet were free, at the cost of her bleeding wrists. Emily quickly stood up, swaying a bit because she had been lying for so long and now she was suddenly upright. She made her way quietly through her hall, and stopped when she reached the stairs that led downs. She listened carefully, and could hear O'Connory moving around down there.

Emily hid in the quest-room, holding the door only partly shut, only so much that she could see when O'Connory would come up again for her, but he wouldn't notice her.

After five minutes or so O'Connory jogged up the stairs. Emily burst out of the room, knowing she only had a few seconds head-start.

She bolted down the stairs but tripped mid-way down and fell, unable to protect herself what so ever from the fall, and hit her shoulder when she landed. After a few seconds excruciating pain in her rib-cage, she got control over her body again and she jumped up just as she heard O'Connory's footsteps coming closer.

Emily ran straight to where she had left her phone, aware that O'Connory was at the top of the stairs. She pressed button number one and thankfully Garcia picked up right away.

"Hello Ms-"

"Garcia I need backup! O'Connory's here!" Emily shouted into the phone.

"Wha-" Was all Emily had the time to hear before a gunshot echoed through her home.

Emily's phone fell to the floor accompanied with Garcia's terrified screams. Emily looked down and saw dark, red blood ooze out from an even darker red hole in her stomach. The pain was almost blinding and deafening at the same time.

Darkness began to surround Emily and she didn't even notice she had fallen down on the floor, still looking in awe at her blood-covered hands, looking rather intrigued by it, almost as if she wasn't aware it was hers but a liquid she had never seen before, and it was mesmerizing.

* * *

"Emily! Emily are you okay!?" Garcia shouted at the phone while she typed furiously on her key-board.

Garcia's hands were shaking as she listened to the trembling breathing on the other line, the breathing that became more and more labeled as seconds ticked by.

Garcia heard footsteps, and someone picking up the phone.

"I hope you said goodbye."

And the line was dead. Garcia's eyes watered with tears and her computer confirmed the call was made from the pink phone she had given Emily, and that the pink phone was currently in Emily's apartment.

Garcia dialed a number and after two rings it was picked up.

"Hotchner."

"Hotch! It was Em-the-UNSUB-has-her-and-I-heard-a-gunshot-and-"

"Whoa slow down Garcia!"

"YOU NEED TO GO TO EMILY'S PLACE RIGHT NOW SIR!" Garcia shouted into her phone frustrated Hotch wasn't already on his way with the rest of the team.

"Are you sure?" Hotch's doubting voice was to be heard.

"YES! RIGHT NOW!"

"OK." The line went dead and Garcia squeezed one of her furry things in her office, concentrating on breathing.

* * *

Emily wasn't even feeling the blows that were coming to her body. She could barely make out O'Connory's face, filled with hatred shouting things at her.

"Why did you have to do that!?" He shouted at her but Emily was unfazed by him, not even blinking.

"You're not getting away with all of this." Emily had to make a giant effort to make her lips move.

"Look if I care! Everything would have gone so much smoother if you had just stayed were I left you!"

O'Connory bent down and closed his hands around Emily's throat. His fingers pressed against the delicate skin and Emily felt her head pound louder and louder each second passing by.

"No." O'Connory let her go as if she had burned him and Emily fell down on the floor, her head banging against the hard wood

"No." He repeated again, looking at her without actually seeing her.

He backed away out of Emily's sight. Emily's eyes slowly turned up towards the ceiling and she wondered did it feel like this to die.

It was becoming hard to breathe and to keep her eyes open. Emily's whole mouth felt like blood she was close to suffocating on it.

Suddenly O'Connory was standing over Emily once again, pointing her own gun at her head. His face was dark, shadowy and he looked crazy, his hair greasy and hanging down in wispy bunches.

O'Connory clicked the safety off and shut one of his eyes, aiming. Emily heard a loud bang and O'Connory looked up. His face shifted quickly from concentrated to surprised and finally to angry before he fired.

Emily closed her eyes, waiting for everything to end, but it didn't.

There were several shots to be heard and then it was too hard fighting the welcoming oblivion, the embracing soft darkness, and Emily let herself fall.

* * *

**Woah I kinda hate myself for ending this like this...!  
**

**Please I beg you on my poor knees on the cold floor to review!**


	22. Chapter 22

**A/N: Hello, nice to see you again! Here's to you, the awesome reviewers! You were great last chapter! I think this chapter is one of the stronger ones, even tho it lacks Emily's perspective.**

**Disclaimer: Damn, I don't own! *newsflash!***

* * *

CHAPTER 22

_'The course of true love never did run smooth.'- William Shakespeare._

* * *

"Shit!" Hotch said bluntly after the man they had chased for so long sunk to the floor. "I need a medic!" He roared out.

He ran forwards and kicked the gun out of O'Connory's lax hand.

"JJ are you OK?" He turned around and saw JJ cursing and studying two bullets, stuck in her FBI-vest.

"He's never going to stop shooting me, that guy. I'm fine, check Emily!" She added acidly and looked up when she saw Hotch still standing there looking at her.

"I got this. Go see the medics." Hotch nodded at her and returned his focus onto Emily.

"I'm going to find Morgan." Reid said and left Rossi and Hotch.

"How is she?" Rossi asked Hotch and walked closer.

Hotch fell on his knees next to Emily. She had a pulse. He put pressure on the dismaying wound on her stomach, drenching his hands in her warm blood.

Her face didn't resemble the beautiful one they were used to seeing, it had none of the fine features it usually had, it was so badly swollen. The most worrying thing was, her eyes were closed and she didn't react in any way to his presence.

"Bad. I need medics right away!"

Rossi nodded and left, probably to check why it was taking them so long to arrive.

Hotch stared at Emily. It was uncomfortable seeing her this bare, so he took off his jacket and laid it carefully on her.

After a few beats Rossi stormed into the room, followed by to paramedics. They had a stretcher with them, which they put down next to Emily.

"What took you so long!?" Hotch asked them, furious.

"We had to take care of a man and a woman before we could get over here." One of them told Hotch, without looking at him, while he and his co-worker lifted Emily up on the stretcher.

"Sir, you can stop holding her now. We really need to go, we're loosing her." The same man who just had talked now looked up seriously at Hotch.

"What? She-" Was all Hotch could say before Rossi tore him away, giving the paramedics their space.

The two men followed the medics and Emily, seeing how her head lolled from side to side, her body completely slack.

"Who's going with her?" Rossi asked the remaining agents when Emily was being loaded into an ambulance. "Where's Morgan?"

"Reid went with him." JJ answered. She was looking better now, the vest off and the shock of being shot at was gone. No matter how many times it happened, it was always scary seeing an UNSUB leveling a gun at you and firing.

Hotch nodded, he was afraid his voice would break if he used it, breaking the illusion of him being unfazed by anything and showing how scared he really was for his agents.

"Sir, we really need to go now." It was the annoying paramedic again poking at Rossi's shoulder.

"I'll come." Rossi said and jumped in.

* * *

The doors slammed shut behind him and the ambulance sped off, momentarily throwing him off-balance. When Rossi finally found it again, the two paramedics were already fully emerged in treating Emily.

They had put an oxygen mask over her mouth and nose. One of them was treating her stomach-wound, shouting things at the other one, who was looking frantic.

A monitor kept beeping, and Rossi stared at it. Up... Down... Up... the green line went, showing Emily's pulse.

Suddenly, the line went flat. The monitor started screaming as crazy. Rossi looked down at Emily in horror. She was giving up on them. No, no, no, he chanted his head, this wasn't happening.

He did the only thing he could think of and took her ice-cold hand and squeezed it.

"C'mon Emily, you can do

it, don't give up now..." He murmured at her.

The paramedics were doing CPR on Emily. They counted, pushed on Emily's chest rhythmically, then they had a pump which they used to force oxygen into Emily's mouth, and then they counted, pushed, counted, oxygen, pushed... nothing

"Give me the defibrillator!" One of them shouted.

The other one jumped up and handed him it, looking serious.

"300!" The one holding the defibrillator shouted and rubbed the defibrillator together.

"Clear!" He shouted and put them on Emily's chest.

It was just like on TV. There was a weird sound and Emily's chest jumped up, then down.

Everyone's eyes fell on the monitor, waiting for it to begin drawing a line,a line that wasn't flat. But it didn't.

"700! Clear!" The paramedic repeated the procedure and Emily's whole body jerked up now.

But still, nothing. The line remained flat. Rossi's heart seemed to beat for two now.

"One last time! 1200!" The paramedic screamed as if he was in a soap opera and rubbed the defibrillator together a third and final time.

Emily's body jumped. Then it was still.

As if a miracle, a beeping began.

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

Rossi softened his grip on Emily's hand that he had been squeezing as a life-line, and he took a deep, shaky breath. He realized he hadn't taken a single breath since Emily died.

She died. _Died_. She had gone to heaven and God had sent her back. It wasn't her time.

Rossi squeezed Emily's hand once again, then let go and leaned against the ambulance-wall, closing his eyes. This whole experience had aged him a decade.

* * *

"Oh my God, I came as fast as I could! Are they OK? I heard what happened-"

"It's fine, Garcia." Rossi smiled weakly and put his hand on her shoulder to calm the panicked woman. Garcia seemed to shrink a couple of inches and elder a few years at the same time.

"This is so horrible Dave!" She said and broke down in the older agent's helpless arms.

"Shh.. shh... It's going to be alright..." Rossi said and patted the blonde tech's hair.

"How can you y that!?" Garcia broke away from the hug. "How can you-? You don't know that! They could both be dying! They -"

"Garcia." Hotch simply said, but his warning tone was everything it took to make her quiet. "Sit down."

"Uh, yes sir." Garcia said shakily and sat down next to a pale Reid.

"So..." She swallowed and looked up again, glassy-eyed. "What's going on?"

"Derek should be fine. He was unconscious, took a pretty bad hit in the head. He might be a little bit disoriented at first, but doctor said he should recover fully. His leg is broken too, but that's it." Hotch said, using Morgan's first name in hope to seem more friendly, and even shot Garcia an encouraging smile. He knew how close Derek and Garcia really were, if something happened to one of them, it was like shooting the other down at the same time.

Garcia relaxed slightly, and smiled a teary smile.

"Good." She blew her nose in a handkerchief she dug out from her blood-red purse. "And Emily?" She asked, fear returning.

Hotch bit his lip. He looked at his old friend, Dave, begging him to share.

"What? What is it, is she okay? Oh my God, is she...!?" Garcia couldn't make herself say the word.

"No!" Rossi quickly stepped in. "She is bad, though."

"How bad?" Garcia begged him.

Rossi didn't know if it would be the best thing to keep anything away from this woman, she would just hack the hospital's files and check for herself if she sensed they were lying to her. Reid let out a quiet, dry sob next to Garcia.

"We lost her momentarily in the ambulance. She was officially dead for one minute thirty-six seconds. But they managed to revive her. She's currently in surgery, they're operating on her bullet-wound, which isn't looking good. She got pretty bad blows too." Rossi looked down at his shaking hands. Telling the truth out loud, had made it so much clearer. They could be loosing Emily. They were only co-workers, but he cared deeply for her, like she was the kid he never got. And for her he was the father she never got. He was more married to this team than he ever had been to any of his ex-wives.

"Oh no!" Garcia blurted out and burst into tears, hugging Spencer, who began crying, he too, but silently, next to the loudly sobbing Penelope. JJ sat next to them, hugging herself, silent tears streaming down her face.

They were crying for Derek, they cried for Emily, they cried for the unfair situations in the world, they cried for each others, they cried tears for Hotch and Rossi. They cried for their friends, slightly easing the pain from each others'.

* * *

"Derek Morgan?"

"Yes?" Five voices echoed each others.

The short redheaded woman looked up and quirked an eyebrow slightly, but then continued.

"He should be just fine. He's waking up right now, if you'd like to be with him?"

"Yes." Five voices answered her again, making her slightly smile.

"I can only let in two."

"Ma'am, I am the Unit Chief of the Behavior Analysis team of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. If you do not-"

"OK, I get it. You may all see him then, just keep it quiet, he'll be really out of it."

"Thank you." Hotch nodded and led the team into Morgan's room.

The room was dark, the blinds were drawn, letting in only a restricted amount of light. Morgan had been lucky; he was alone in the room.

He was lying on a hospital-bed, stirring slightly, sweat-droplets shining on his forehead.

"Hey Hot Stuff..." Garcia purred and stroke his head. "You're OK."

"Emily?" Morgan asked with a feeble voice, not at all resembling his normal voice.

"No honey, it's me, Pen."

"Pen?"

"Yeah. I'm here, you've got Reid, Jayjay, Rossi and Morgan too." Garcia talked with a honeyed voice.

"Uhuh?"

"Yeah, we're all here."

Morgan opened his chocolate-brown eyes. He let them take in the sight for a couple of seconds, quietly. Then he frowned and scratched his head.

"What am I doing here?"

"You got attacked Sweety Pie." Garcia told him.

"Emily?"

"Yeah, she was there too."

"Is she okay?"

"Uh... yeah, she's fine." Garcia lied.

Morgan sighed and lied down again.

"What are my symptoms?"

"Broken leg and concussion." Reid stepped closer.

"Hey, nice to see you too!" Morgan joked.

The others took a deep breath, he was fine. Well, almost. A slight memory loss was evident.

"We'll go wait outside." Hotch said. "Get well. We'll stop by later."

Morgan nodded and waved goodbye as Hotch, Rossi, Reid and JJ walked out.

"So, how are you doing?" Morgan asked Garcia.

"Huh." Garcia said and smiled while tears fell from her eyes.

"Hey, don't cry Baby Girl." Morgan said and wiped a few tears away from Garcia's cheek.

"I thought I'd lost you." Garcia sobbed.

"Hey, I'm fine, see? Morgan extended his arms on his sides, showing himself off. "As hansom as always."

Garcia chuckled slightly. "Of course."

"So, tell me what happened?" He said after a few minutes comfortable silence.

"Well, we were chasing a guy who killed successful women, and he got Em, but we got her back. Then we knew he was in Virginia so you guys flew back, and you were protecting Emily all the time. But he still got to you, it was my fault, I fell asleep so I didn't see him enter her building and-"

"It's okay, Sweet Cheeks, it wasn't your fault." Morgan smiled encouragingly at her.

"Well anyways, he cuffed Em and then he hit you." Garcia let a single tear fall before she continued. "I got a call from Emily, but he shot her." She sniffed. "I called in the whole parade, but he was already beating her. Hotch and Rossi shot him. He's dead. O'Connory's dead."

Morgan stared at the blue-white wall in front of him, taking this in.

"You said she was fine." His voice cracked.

"I don't know Derek! They're operating on her, she's critical! We don't know anything yet!" Garcia burst out crying again, for what felt like the thousandth time these past weeks.

Morgan wasn't able to say anything, nor move, or blink, he was paralyzed.

"I- I love her, Garcia."

"What?" Garcia interrupted her crying to look up at Morgan, her eyebrows scrunched. "What did you just say?"

"I love her." Morgan's eyes lit up as he looked up at Garcia. "Pen, I love Emily!" The last was more like he had finally understood the answer of biggest question in his life.

Garcia looked down at the man next to her. Her eyes were still filled with tears, but they were happy-tears now. She smiled and stroke Morgan's cheek.

"I know Derek. You always have."

* * *

**Oh god I just love the ending, don't you?**

**Oh and let's make a deal: I will update TOMORROW, if we get over a hundred reviews. Like not 100 reviews on this chapter, but all in all 100. (only need seven reviews... Damn I sound like a review-whore but darn it, I just love your reviews SO MUCH!)**


	23. Chapter 23

**A/N: Wow! You reviewed like crazy! Thanks! Really! Well here's my part of he deal:**

**Disclaimer: Don't own.**

* * *

CHAPTER 23

_'The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing... not healing, not curing... that is a friend who cares.'-Henri Nouwen_

* * *

The next few hours practically dragged by, slower than ever before. The clock on the wall in Morgan's room seemed to enjoy torturing the agents watching it by slowly, painfully move it's hands, making the seconds turn into minutes, and minutes into long hours.

Even the sun had gone to bed, and the world seemed unreal, even, inside the white walls of the hospital, as if the world they could see through the one lonely window wasn't there for real, that it was only a vivid panting. But the trees were moving in the breeze, the cars were moving along the roads, and the people were really moving. It was real.

The team was gathered in Morgan's room, sitting uncomfortably on chairs or in Hotch's and JJ's cases, pacing around in the enclosed area, only to, every ten minutes get some important phone-call that they had to take outside. It was probably Strauss who was bugging them, wanting them to explain why their target had managed to send two of her agents to the hospital. But the team knew, that wasn't why she was calling. She was only concerned about the huge bills she'd have to send the government.

And then, finally, the door-handle was pressed down and the same doctor the team had seen earlier walked in, looking tired, a smile plastered on her face, and if it was supposed to look friendly, calming, it only managed to look relieved, relieved because of something no-one else but her knew.

"I s'ppose you're here for Emily Prentiss as well?" She asked the group, eyes wandering over each and every one of them.

Everyone nodded, fear and anticipation etched on their faces.

"She gave us a hell of a scare, oh yes she did. We managed to tend her internal bleeding, and the cuts and bruises she had were severe. The wound in her stomach was a different story though. She had lost a huge amount of blood when she arrived, and we were this close-" She showed them how close they were with her fingers, leaving only a miniscule gap between her thumb and index finger. "To loosing her. But she's tough, and we managed to stabilize her."

This was what the team had wanted to hear, and when they got the best of news, they all visibly relaxed.

"She's currently under heavy painkillers, but if you want to see her I can make that happen."

"Yes, we do." JJ nodded at the doctor.

"Alright, she's in room 408. Take it easy with her." The doctor said before she left the room to tend other patients. Her night was only starting.

"I want to come too." Morgan said as soon as the door closed behind the doctor.

"You shouldn't really-" Hotch began, but was interrupted by Garcia.

"Do you really think you can make him stay? Go make use of yourself and find me a wheelchair."

Hotch seemed momentarily taken aback by the brusque tone Garcia used, but he seemed to cave and nodded.

* * *

Emily looked exactly how Morgan had pictured her to look: pale, hair messy around her face, fragile and too small for the hospital-bed. In fact, she reminded him an awful lot of when she had been in the hospital in Denver.

The team said their greetings to her, first Reid, who looked shaken and patted one of Emily's cold hands that laid next to her, carefully not to move the tube they had inserted in the back of it, then JJ, who silently cried when she gently hugged her best friend, then Rossi, who took Emily's hand between both of his and said something in Italian, and then Hotch who actually put one of his hands on Emily's shoulder and nodded at her.

Then, they all walked out, murmuring that they would wait outside, looking meaningfully at Morgan.

Garcia wheeled him closer to the bed, careful not to bump him into one of the many machines keeping Emily alive.

"There you go." She said when she couldn't push him any closer. "Take care of her, Derek." She was unusually calm and serious when she squeezed Morgan's shoulder and before walking out, kissed Emily's forehead, whispering something to her.

Morgan waited until he was sure Garcia was gone, before he laboriously pushed himself out of the wheelchair and laid down next to Emily.

It almost felt like when he had laid next to her at her home, except for the fact that she was much colder now and there were machines monitoring every movement, every change her body made.

Morgan didn't know what to do, so he lifted the blanket and covered both of them with it. He soon dozed off to the beeping, holding the body next to him, desperately clinging to it, wanting to never let go.

"Derek?" The voice was raspy, thick, but familiar.

Someone was caressing Morgan's head.

"Derek you're kind of suffocating me." The familiar voice chuckled slightly.

Morgan suddenly understood where he was. He opened his tired eyes and looked into Emily's. He eased his grip around her and sat up.

"You're awake."

"Yeah." She said and closed her eyes. Morgan watched her face contract, before she opened her eyes again.

"You OK?" Morgan asked her, worried.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Emily's answers were short, and she seemed to struggle to manage to speak.

They both went silent, not really knowing what to say or do.

"He's dead, isn't he?" Emily finally asked, leaning heavily against her pillows with her eyes closed.

"Yeah. Hotch and Rossi shot him."

Emily nodded, a barely noticeable nod, before her whole body suddenly relaxed.

"Em?" Morgan asked, suddenly worried.

"She's out again." Someone said behind him. Morgan turned around and saw an old nurse in the doorway. "We have her under some pretty strong medicines."

"Oh."

"Your friend here," The nurse motioned at Garcia who was now standing behind her. "-made me wait to come in here. She's quite the briber. But I really need to look after Ms. Prentiss now and I'm sure your nurses are disappointed with me for not making you return to your own room."

Morgan nodded and eased himself into the wheelchair once again, and Garcia walked over to push him.

"How is she?" She asked Morgan as they passed a couple of nurses pushing a man who looked to have his leg cut off on a stretcher.

"I don't know." Morgan honestly said. "In pain." He shrugged, noncommittal.

"Well yeah, sounds about normal. It's so weird seeing you guys this vulnerable. I'd never thought I'd see Emily Prentiss like that. She's always been so strong, unbeatable. Go figure." Garcia thought out loud.

The next days passed like this. Morgan had talked the nurses into moving him to Emily's room, but there wasn't much to do there since Emily was unconscious most parts of the day, and when she was awake she was so weak she hadn't the strength to talk for longer than five minutes a time.

After three days, Morgan was released. Garcia laughed and said it didn't change much, since he spent all his time in Emily's hospital-room anyway.

* * *

Two weeks later, Emily was already up and she could walk around for a little while, and during the third week, she was released too, and she could go home.

Garcia, who had been more helpful than necessary, drove Morgan and Emily to Morgan's place, since Emily didn't want to stay at her own place just yet.

"I'll make you some food, I know this wonderful mac and cheese recipe!" Garcia bounced out to Morgan's kitchen and started rummaging through the drawers.

"Can I help?" Emily walked slowly closer.

"Oh no honey go find yourself a nice place to rest, I'll take care of everything!" Garcia waved her away.

Emily smiled thankfully at her and turned around.

"Where shall I go?" She asked Morgan, who stood with his crutches looking uncomfortable.

"Uh, I've got a guest-room if you want it."

"That'll be great."

Morgan nodded and showed Emily the way.

"Hey, thank you so much for having me." She smiled at him when she had put her go-bag Garcia had gotten for her down on the bed.

"Anytime, Princess." Morgan smiled charmingly, making Emily's stomach flutter with a thousandth butterflies.

* * *

Garcia had finally gone home. It wasn't that Emily didn't appreciate her help, but it was Garcia. And Garcia could be pretty intense. Specially when you just had come home from the hospital.

Emily laid in the quest-bed, staring up at the ceiling. She found it hard to get any sleep, it felt like her eyes were dry as sand, but she still couldn't make her eyelids to close.

She slowly scooted out of bed and tiptoed out to the hallway.

"Emily?" Morgan's voice sounded from a door ajar.

"Uh, sorry, I couldn't sleep." Emily peeked into the room.

Morgan was lying on his bed, one foot over the covers, the one that was broken. Emily swallowed. How Morgan still managed to look hot now, she had no idea.

"It's okay, I was just going to watch a movie. Care to join?"

Emily walked over and sat down next to Morgan on his bed. She kept a little distance, but the move seemed oddly intimate.

"What are we going to watch?" She asked.

"Why don't you choose?"

Emily got up and looked through Morgan's impressive DVD-collection. She looked through it for a while, and finally came up with one.

"This one." She smilingly showed Morgan the DVD-case.

"Star Wars II, eh?"

"One of my favorites."

She sat back down next to Morgan, who put his hand around her. Emily felt a little uncomfortable at first, but soon grew out of the feeling.

They spent the whole night watching movies, and fell asleep first in the early morning, not thinking once about any of their problems.

* * *

**Why don't you review, and I'll post tomorrow? Shall we say 115 reviews this time?  
**


	24. Chapter 24

**A/N: You know what people? I think this was the last chapter!**

**A sincere thank you to all of you who have taken time to read this, even if you haven't reviewed. And another thank you to you who have reviewed, it has given me motivation and I' like to think it has helped and improved my writing as well. Thank you if you have favorited or alerted, it means _so_ much.**

**Disclaimer: I still don't own:(**

* * *

CHAPTER 24

_'When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we took so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened up for us.'- Helen Keller_

* * *

Hours passed, making days that passed, and those forming weeks. Slowly but surely the trees began to grow green leaves, and the grass became green again. Flowers blossomed in hundreds of thousands of brilliant colors, sending their sweet smell into the air. People laughed, excited about the vacations from school and work, smiles painted on their faces, walking about, chattering with friends or deep buried in their own thoughts. The heavy snow that had filled the streets, not so long ago, was long gone, and nobody missed it. Summer was in the air.

But in the FBI-building, the air was still cool, the rooms dim and gray. Only a few windows had been opened, through which you could hear the birds' excited twittering and see that summer really was on its way, but otherwise, the building hadn't really changed its gloominess, apparently not caring if it was summer or winter, day or night. The agents working there, running around like ants, seemed so engrossed in what they were working on, that they wouldn't probably even notice if it started snowing in mid May.

All seven floors and dozens of departments in the building were held by this same exact scene. People were concentrating so hard on the tasks they were trying to accomplish, that they forgot to even say a simple 'hello' to their friends and co-workers, distancing themselves from the rest of society. But this was price they were willing to pay, all to 'support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic...'.

This was why the Technical Analyst on the seventh floor, Ms. Penelope Garcia, who was currently walking happily through the glass doors shielding the Behavior Analysis Unit's bullpen from the busy hallways, was dressed in bright colors, as if trying to cut herself off from the horrible things she was witnessing through her computer-screens, things other people didn't know were happening, and thought only occurred in horror-movies.

Penelope had dyed her hair red for the occasion, was wearing a green dress and a purple jacket on it. She turned a few heads -and was proud of it- when she clumsily walked through the bullpen, carrying several large and heavy bags, up a few stairs, onto the catwalk on the far end of the room and into the round-room the BAU used for case-briefing.

She put her three giant bags on the round table, and stared rebelliously at them, a smirk playing on her lips. To not 'make a big deal out of it' was what she had been told, but then again, was why was anyone really expecting anything less from the one and only Penelope Garcia?

Penelope began taking out bright, colorful things out of the bag. There was a cake, brightly colored muffins and cupcakes, party favors, confetti and even a 'welcome back' banner.

"She won't be happy." A familiar voice said, and Penelope turned around to see David Rossi lean on the door-frame, looking rather amused at Penelope's antics.

"Well what was she expecting?" Garcia smiled and turned around to face her colorful mess on the table. "Now won't you hansom sight come in here and help me, she should be here in ten minutes, and when has Emily Prentiss ever been late?"

She heard Dave sigh, but was positively surprised he actually walked over and started hanging the banner over their heads.

"What the hell happened here? Has someone let a unicorn burp all over the place?" The sweet voice of JJ's rang from behind David and Penelope. "Dave, I thought I'd never see you hang up a party-banner."

David only shrugged and pointed at Penelope. "She made me."

Garcia smiled viciously at JJ. "But isn't it a mighty fine sight?"

JJ suppressed a giggle. Reid walked up behind her, looking confusedly around him.

"What's happening? None of us has a birthday in seventeen weeks, three days, five hours and thirteen minutes."

"Oh Reid my dear little boy-" Garcia clapped her hands together and Reid took a horrified step back, but she never had the time to finish her sentence as JJ spoke up, rescuing Reid.

"Hotch is coming right now. I'd pay to see him in one of these!" She picked up a glittering, pink and purple party-hat.

"Your wish will be granted my dear." Penelope said and rubbed her hands together.

At that moment, Hotch walked in. He grimly eyed the room, then turned to Penelope.

"I thought I told you not to do anything?"

"Oh yes you did Boss-man, but you didn't specify _anything_."

Hotch looked at her in defeat, knowing this was a loosing battle. He didn't open his mouth to argue and only got to sit on a chair as far possible away from Penelope.

"Uh uh! No hiding Mr. Fearless Monster-hunter! You're going to put this on and no complainants!" Garcia fetched the party-hat from JJ's hands and put it on Hotch's head, making the elastic sting snap around his chin, securing the hat.

"That's better. Now smile that lovely smile of yours and don't look like Grumpy!" Penelope bubbled and suddenly froze as she looked out of the window that faced the bullpen.

"They're coming! Oh my god! Everyone take their places!" She shouted and hurried over to where Hotch was sitting and she bowed down behind him, hiding them from the doorway-view with a giant blue balloon.

JJ and Rossi also came to squat behind the table, followed by a lanky Reid. They all waited a few minutes before they heard two very familiar voices approaching.

* * *

Emily walked into the bullpen next to Morgan. She eyed the room and when she didn't see anyone familiar, she turned around to face Morgan.

"Where are they at?"

"Probably in the briefing-room." He shrugged. "I'm still angry at you, you know."

"And why is that?"

"I told you not to rise that early. You could use some sleep."

"Why thank you." Emily rolled her eyes at him. "Do I look that horrible?"

"No, you look just fine." He emphasized on the 'fine'. "But three forty-five a.m? Seriously?" He added, disbelievingly.

"I couldn't sleep." It was Emily's turn to shrug.

"Nightmare again, huh?" Morgan understood her again without her having to give anything more away.

Emily only nodded and looked away over the sea of working agents.

"Can we please do this another time?" She made eye-contact with Morgan again, her brown eyes so pleading he couldn't argue.

"Sure thing Princess." He said and squeezed her hand, supportingly.

* * *

"Where are they at?" Garcia asked impatiently, peeking around the balloon she was hiding behind.

"Shh, be quiet!" JJ whispered agitatedly.

"Why, if they-"

"Shut it Garcia, I can hear them coming!" Rossi whispered, waving his hand in a quieting motion at the now red-headed tech. And he was right, when they strained their ears they could hear the sound of two voices, and the sounds of Emily's boots clicking against the floor.

"-told Garcia I didn't want to make a fuss about me returning, but I expected some familiar faces nonetheless." Prentiss' voice carried to the waiting agents.

"Don't relax. Knowing my Baby Girl she'll have three clowns and a mini horse waiting for you somewhere in the building." Morgan laughed as he stepped into the briefing room. "Oh look-"

His words were lost as the hiding agents suddenly jumped out of their hides and screamed in unison "Surprise!"

Emily jumped backwards, her heart skipping a beat.

"Oh my god you scared me!" She scolded, hand on her chest.

"Told ya." Morgan winked at her.

Emily couldn't help the smile that spread on her face as she eyed the room and the rest of the team. By the time her eyes fell on Hotch, she couldn't help herself bursting out laughing. He looked so ridiculous in his party hat.

"You guys really shouldn't have." She said as she calmed down.

"It was nothing." Garcia said and walked over to where the muffins, cupcakes and the cake were. "Dig in! I've been watching these babies for a while now and I don't think I can last a second longer!"

* * *

"Hello Agent Prentiss. Please have a seat."

"Thank you. Ma'am." Emily sat down in front of Strauss' desk, eying the older woman as she walked around the desk and sat down.

"I believe Ms. Garcia threw you a little party." Strauss said, trying to make small talk.

"Yes. I told her not to but-"

"I've read your mental evaluation, and it seems fine." Strauss interrupted, not really caring about Emily's answer and happy having the control she had. "I'm ready to assign you to full-duty again."

"Thank you ma'am."

"But I want to know if you are one hundred percent up to this." Strauss' eyes narrowed slightly, waiting for Emily's reaction.

"I am. I am in no physical pain and I see nothing that could affect my work."

"Good." Strauss leaned back in her chair, intertwining her fingers in front of her. "So I assume you will not have some kind of fit and panic and shoot everyone on the scene?" Strauss' every word dropped with weight, dripping with sarcasm, only infuriating Emily more.

"No I will not. Now if this was it." Emily let her hands fall with a loud bang on Strauss' desk and rose violently.

Strauss remained silent, eying the younger brunette in front of her. Finally, she spoke out.

"Yes. Thank you agent Prentiss."

Emily walked to the door, and turned around just as she was about to walk out. Strauss was still sitting in the same position she had been in when Emily had turned around.

"Ma'am." Emily stressed the word, making it mocking. She nodded and walked out before Strauss had the time to recover from the shock.

* * *

Emily stumbled on Hotch as they collided rounding a corner from opposite directions.

"Oh I'm sorry." Emily mumbled but didn't look up, still fuming from her confrontation with Strauss.

"How was your meeting with Strauss?" Hotch asked in a conversational tone.

"Oh it-" Emily trailed off.

"You snapped at her." It wasn't a question, it was an affirmation.

Emily nodded, suddenly ashamed of her actions She was here to prove that she was ready for field, but all she had managed to prove was the opposite.

Hotch's jaw clenched but he didn't say anything. After a few moments he looked at Emily again, this time with a small smile playing on his lips. Emily looked at him in wonder and surprise.

"It happens." Was all he said and walked away. Emily could have sworn he blinked at her.

"What was all that about?" Reid asked Emily as soon as she had sat down at her desk. He, JJ, Morgan, Rossi and Garcia walked closer, enthusiastic about hearing what had happened in Strauss' office and what had been said between her and Hotch.

Emily looked happily around the bullpen. Everything looked just as it had done before everything broke loose, before Sean O'Connory. Emily thought about his corpse being lowered into the ground as they spoke, and she didn't even feel guilty about feeling joyful the monster was dead.

She looked back at the people that stood her the closest in the world, and smiled brilliantly at them.

"Things are back to normal."

* * *

**WOW! Is this really the end..? I guess so... I might, maybe, if there is enough demand for it write an epilogue, we'll see. I kinda liked to leave things open with Em and Morgan (I still can't seem to manage to call him Derek (WHY!?)), so that you can imagine whatever you want to happening. **

**I actually just finished this, and I'm pretty happy with it (Probably the Ben&Jerry's I'm eating giving me super-powers), so I decided to post it right away for ya.**

**Please stay tuned, I'll start working on another story and it will be posted in the nearest future! Don't hesitate to contact me somehow if you want to suggest anything or well, ask anything from earth to the moon!**

**One last thing. see that yellow button that says 'review' down there v? Would you please click it and write a last review? Please?:)**

**THANK YOU. I COULDN'T HAVE DONE IT WITHOUT YOU.**

**KCCM**


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